The Photograph You Will Keep

the picture that ends up framed in the hallway is almost never the one anyone planned for.

For family photos, wear a long dress in a natural fabric in a neutral or earth tone, and let everyone else dress around it. Choose linen, cotton, silk or ramie over anything shiny or synthetic. Avoid logos, slogans and small busy prints, which the camera turns to noise. Coordinate the family across two or three shades rather than matching them.

Every autumn the same question arrives in our inbox. The session is booked, the photographer is paid, and the clothes turn out to be the hard part.

Start with one outfit and build the family around it

The usual mistake is to dress five people separately and hope. Dress one person properly and the rest becomes arithmetic. That person is almost always the mother, because her outfit carries the most colour and length, and because she is the one who decides later whether she likes the picture.

So choose her dress first, pull two or three colours out of it, and dress everyone else from those. A clay gown gives you cream, soft denim and warm brown. An off white gown gives you sand, olive and a muted blue. Our Family Photo Outfits collection is built that way, ten pieces whose colours sit beside each other without argument.

What colours are best for family photos?

Neutrals and earth tones photograph best. They hold their colour in any light and keep attention on faces.

• Safest in any light. Cream, off white, sand, oatmeal, flax, soft grey.
• Warmest outdoors. Clay, terracotta, rust, caramel, olive, moss.
• Good on one person, heavy across a group. Black, charcoal, navy.
• Use sparingly. One saturated colour reads as intention. Three read as chaos.
• Avoid. Neon, bright sportswear, anything that glows under a flash.

Outdoors in autumn, lean warm. The landscape is already brown and grey, and a cream or clay dress lifts a person out of it. Indoors with window light, cream is hard to get wrong.

Which fabrics photograph well, and which ones do not

Fabric matters more than people expect, and no colour chart tells you about it. Linen, cotton, silk, ramie and bamboo rayon hold light softly and fall in long unbroken lines. Polyester satin throws hard highlights that blow out under a flash, and thin jersey clings in a way a photographer has to retouch. If you own one beautiful natural fibre dress, wear that one.

Two honest notes. Linen creases, and it is meant to, though it is worth reading how to get wrinkles out of linen the night before. And linen is not only a summer fabric, which we answered in can you wear linen in winter.

Should everyone match for family photos?

No. Coordinate instead. Matching outfits flatten five people into one shape and date the photograph to the year it was taken.

A working rule: two or three colours across the whole family, and vary the texture rather than the colour. A linen dress, a knitted jumper and a cotton shirt in three shared shades will still look right in fifteen years. Four pieces in identical plaid will not.

What to avoid wearing for family photos

• Logos and slogans. The eye finds words before faces.
• Tight small patterns. Fine checks and narrow stripes shimmer on camera.
• Anything brand new. You stand differently in a dress you have never worn.
• Shoes nobody can walk in. Most of a session is walking.
• A dress you are managing. Constant adjusting shows in your shoulders.

Three pieces we would choose, and why

All three are live and in stock.

• The Gloria Dress, $364. Silk and cotton, round neck, deep side pockets, in Off White Perla or Dark Moon Black. Silk returns the light already in the room, which is what an indoor session needs.
• The Oracle Gown, $340. 100% stone washed linen in Moon Milk, sleeveless, high clean neckline. The long unbroken line reads beautifully at full length.
• The Ramie Botanical Origami Gown, $333. 100% botanically dyed ramie in Matcha, Uluwatu Sunset, Golden Sunset or Black Dark Moon. The autumn palette, made literal.

The rest sits in Family Photo Outfits, from $198.

When to order, said plainly

Everything here is made after you order it: 3 to 6 weeks from order to shipment, then 5 to 15 business days with DHL. So if your session is in the next few weeks, nothing we make will reach you in time, and the rules above should be applied to something already in your wardrobe.

If you are booking for January or spring, order now and it will be waiting. The women happiest with what they wore decided two months early and then stopped thinking about it.

Common questions about what to wear for family photos

What should I wear for family photos?

Wear a long dress in a natural fabric in a neutral or earth tone. Linen, cotton, silk, ramie and bamboo rayon photograph well because they hold light softly. Skip logos and busy patterns, and wear something you have worn before.

What colours are best for family pictures?

Cream, off white, sand, oatmeal and soft grey are safest in any light. Clay, terracotta, rust, caramel and olive flatter most outdoors in autumn. Black and navy work on one person and read heavy across a group. Keep the family inside two or three shades.

Should everyone match for family photos?

No. Coordinate rather than match. Pick two or three colours, then vary the texture instead of the colour. Linen, knit and cotton in the same shades look considered for decades. Identical outfits date the photograph to the year it was taken.

What should you avoid wearing for family photos?

Avoid logos and slogans, which pull the eye before faces do, and fine checks or narrow stripes, which shimmer on camera. Avoid anything brand new, shoes you cannot walk in, and any garment you keep adjusting. A dress you are managing shows in your shoulders.

What to wear for family photos besides dresses?

A wide leg linen trouser with a simple top, a linen set, or a long skirt with a knit all photograph as well as a dress, and they are easier if you will be sitting on the ground with small children. The rules hold: natural fabric, quiet colour, nothing you rearrange.

The best family photograph in our house is slightly out of focus and nobody is looking at the camera, and none of us remembers what we were wearing. That is the point.

Myrah Penaloza is a designer and Kundalini Yoga teacher in Bali, where every piece named here is hand stitched by artisan families paid a living wage.

With love from Bali,
Myrah