Ria Panjabi set up The Hot Box Studio in 2015. As an art director and product stylist, she has worked with brands across beauty, fashion, lifestyle and food, including L’Oreal, Ajio Luxe, Bira, Estee Lauder, Yauatcha, Masaba and Hennessy. She talks to us about choosing this niche space as her career, the art of product styling and the approach brands take to appeal to Gen-Z.
How did you get into product styling and setting up your company? I thought I wanted to direct films but was unsure if Bollywood would be a fit for me. So, before I enrolled in film school, I did an internship for two years in the film industry. On set, I was always attracted to the art division.
I realised that most art directors were working in Bollywood and there weren’t many conceptualising for beauty and fashion. That gap in the market clicked with me. When I started nine years ago, there weren’t many product stylists.
Photographers were expected to set up their own shots and art directors were used only on big sets. But there's a huge difference between building a big set and a small set. The attention to detail in smaller sets is a completely different skill set.
I converted a space in my home into a studio and collaborated with photographers who were kind enough to shoot some very ugly compositions. It took me months of practising almost every day to be able to understand how to compose a shot and find the right balance. A post shared by Ria Panjabi (@riidawg) Tell us about the art of produc.