No7 Matchmade Campaign

If you follow me on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook you may already be aware of my involvement in the new No7 Matchmade campaign. I wanted to share everything here but I thought it would be better to wait until the campaign was launched so that I could give you the full story and show you my final campaign image.

On November 1st of last year I saw a post on the Boots Ireland Facebook page looking for someone to be the face of a new national campaign. In a moment of utter madness I decided to go for it so I emailed a photo of myself and a little explanation as to why to wanted to be involved (I included the photo below as I thought you might like to see what photo I went for). To be honest I regretted it straight away and I thought to myself "what the hell was I thinking!" but I honestly didn't expect anything to come of it.




The following week while I was in Paris, I got an email with a questionnaire attached asking for a little more detail about myself so I filled it out and sent it off thinking that was it.

Shortly after I returned from Paris I got a phone call from the No7 Casting Director asking if I would take part in a casting via Skype as they were based in London and wouldn't be able to see me in person. I agreed to do the Skype casting (a totally foreign concept to me, I didn't even really know what a casting was!). Monika called me and we had a lovely chat. She just wanted to know a little bit more about me and see me "in person". At this point I still didn't know the details of the campaign and once again I expected for that to be the end of it.

Towards the end of November I got a phone call one evening and to my absolute shock I was told that I got the job and would be going over to London in December for the photoshoot. My first reaction was, "Oh no. What have I gotten myself in for? Can I actually do this?". Then I thought about it some more and I figured that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and that even though I was terrified, not just of taking part in a proper photoshoot but also flying over to London by myself for the first time, I knew I would regret it if I didn't do it.

I was then told a little more about the campaign, No7 were relaunching their Matchmade service and I would be one of seven "real" women (as in, not professional models) taking part in a national (UK and Ireland) campaign to promote the service.

I flew over to London (my first solo flight) on the evening of December 16th as there was an early call time for the photo shoot the following morning. I was the first to complete me shoot because they wanted me to be finished early to be on time for my flight home.

The first thing we did was some pre-shoot filming where I was asked to run around a huge studio filled with all of the different shades of foundation on big cardboard stands and choose which one I thought was my shade. The one which I thought was the palest shade ended up being 4 shades darker than what I thought. After that I had my make up done (this was also my first time having my make up done by someone else). My nails were painted in the shade Moonlit Shadow (which I actually bought in the airport on the way home) and my hair was left quite natural, only using the curling iron a little bit.

I was then fitted for the top I would wear for the photoshoot. As it was just a mid shot, the styling team only had tops and I actually didn't have any bottom half with me as I was wearing a dress so I ended up wearing my pyjama bottoms during the shoot which was quite funny and probably helped to loosen me up a bit. We ended up going for a pale pink top as it worked best with my skin tone and against the background in the test shots.

My photographer was Frederike Helwig, an incredibly talented photographer who has shot for Elle US and UK, L'Officiel, Muse, Harpers Bazaar and Bergdorf Goodman and has shot some of my favourite actors and musicians including Jason Schwartzman, Rebecca Hall, Matt Smith, The Stokes, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard and Bryan Ferry. It was such an honour to be shot by her, she was a dream to work with. As I had never modelled before Frederike was very conscious of helping me come out of my shell and to relax and have fun and to get the most natural looking shot to suit the campaign. By the end of the shoot I was dancing around and screaming, it was so much fun!

After the shoot we did a little more filming and an interview which you can see a snippet of in this video. In the past month I've also been doing some press to promote the campaign in Ireland including a feature on the Boots Ireland site in which I review my seven favourite No7 products which you can read here.

This was the fist time I saw the leaflet in my local Boots with my photo on the front of it




I did a day of filming for Evoke.ie, you can see the video here




I also did a quick photoshoot for an Advertorial that is featured in this month's U Magazine

Like I said in my initial email, I was already a big fan of No7 products as you will know if you've been reading my blog for a while, so to be involved with a brand that I love is such an honour and something I am so proud to be a part of. I'm so thankful for such an incredible opportunity that I feel has really helped me to grow and learn more about myself. I want to thank all of the lovely people I met though out the journey including the other beautiful models who I met on the day and especially Catherine, Sarah, Maria and Jane.

Emma x

PS. Irish website Shemazing.net also did a video about the campaign which you can here.

PPS. Do go and avail of the match made service! I really did love it!