Collaboration with luxury sunglasses brand We The Stars X Billow Beach featuring Brisbane's up and coming male fashion model @jay_dean_whaites

By Shakas Designer

We The Stars is ran by incredible female entrepreneur Simone.

We The Stars is ran by incredible female entrepreneur Simone.

This shoot brought Billow Beach together with We The Stars, a luxury sunglasses and handmade jewellery brand run by Simone. We put Brisbane model Jay Dean Whaites in the olive green Sekmet pair, and Melbourne photographer Claudia Cool captured the whole thing. The images turned out beautifully, but the part I keep coming back to is who was in the room, not just what the camera did.

Simone built We The Stars out of a very personal vision: expressing her creativity, her love of colour, styling and playing dress ups. You can feel that in her range, from the eyewear to the one of a kind, hand made jewellery pieces. It is the same thing that sits underneath Billow Beach. I built that product because a real, ordinary annoyance at the beach wouldn't leave me alone, and I wanted a better answer to it. Two different brands, but both of us started from something we actually lived rather than a gap in a market spreadsheet.

That is why I say yes to collaborations like this one. I would rather deepen a real connection with another founder who is building from their own vision than treat every post as a chase for brand new reach. When two small businesses put their work in the same frame, you get something neither of us makes alone: her eyewear carrying her story, my product carrying mine, and a shoot that introduces each of our audiences to the other.

It is easy to think a collaboration is about borrowing someone else's followers. For me it is closer to the opposite. It is backing people whose work you genuinely rate, and letting the audience notice the care on both sides.

Go check out We The Stars, give Simone a follow, and tell your friends. The pieces are worth it.