Corporate Headshots · Brussels

What Your Team Should Wear for Corporate Headshots

By Dmytro Derkach · Brussels-based commercial photographer

The single most common reason a set of team portraits fails to look like a set is clothing, and it is the one variable a company can control completely before the photographer arrives.

Send a guideline, not a dress code

A dress code produces resistance and awkward compliance. A guideline produces preparation. The difference is whether people are told what to wear or told what will photograph well and left to choose within that.

Send it at least a week before the session. The night-before email guarantees that half the team arrives in whatever was clean.

What reliably works

Solid mid-tone and dark colours: navy, charcoal, deep green, burgundy, and any neutral that is not pure white or pure black. They hold detail, sit calmly behind a face and match each other across a team without looking like a uniform.

Sleeves. Bare arms shift the eye away from the face and date a portrait faster than anything else.

Necklines that frame rather than compete: a collar, a crew neck, a simple V. The eye should land on the face without passing through anything decorative first.

Clothes that fit at the shoulder. On a headshot the shoulder line is half the frame, and a jacket that fits there reads as considered even when nothing else is visible.

What causes problems

Tight patterns — fine checks, thin stripes, small herringbone — can produce moiré, a shimmering interference pattern that is difficult to remove in retouching and impossible to ignore once seen.

Pure white and pure black at the extremes of the frame. White pulls exposure away from the face; black merges into a dark background and turns a portrait into a floating head.

Logos, slogans and anything with visible branding other than the company’s own. They date the image and complicate usage rights.

Heavy jewellery and reflective glasses. Both are fixable, but both cost retouching time that could be spent on skin and light instead.

What Works	What Causes Problems
Solid mid-tone to dark colors (navy, charcoal, burgundy)	Pure white and pure black
Sleeves, necklines that frame the face	Tight patterns (fine checks, herringbone) — moiré risk
Clothes that fit at the shoulder	Logos and slogans outside the company’s own branding
A second outfit option	Heavy jewelry, reflective glasses

Keeping a team consistent without making it uniform

Consistency comes from a shared range, not a shared outfit. Give the team three or four approved colours and one level of formality — business, business casual, or the company’s actual everyday dress — and let people pick within it.

Pick the level of formality that matches how clients actually meet the company. A consultancy that always wears jackets should be photographed in jackets. A studio where nobody owns one should not borrow them for a day; the portraits will look false to anyone who has ever been in the office.

One practical rule solves most of it: everyone brings a second option. It costs nothing, takes a hanger, and rescues the session when something turns out to clash with the chosen background.

Grooming and small details

Haircuts a few days before the session, not the day of. Glasses wearers should bring the frames they actually wear daily rather than a spare, and anti-reflective lenses help considerably.

Bring a lint roller and let people check themselves in a mirror on site. Half of all retouching requests on corporate sets are about a collar, a stray hair or a crooked lapel — all of which take two seconds to fix in front of the camera and twenty minutes afterwards.