With thousands of fashion blogs, influencers and stores ruling the internet, it’s important to stay one step ahead of everyone else and keep honing your brands’ style and aesthetics. This includes building a unique and user-friendly website template, finding your own voice and initiatives and creating your own niche. It is all part of creating a platform, a community, a look, a feel, a vibe your customers will connect with and will want to come back to for more.

When you’re selling a fashion brand and beautifully crafted garments, you’re selling a lifestyle, you’re telling a cultural story. Think of South African brand, Lunar, for example, or Kenyan/Ghanaian apparel, jewelry and accessory brand, odAomo -  there’s a narrative to these pictures and the garments and jewelry pieces showcased. It encourages potential customers to dream and trust these pieces to work the same kind of magic on their own lives and bodies. It inspires them to move outside of their comfort zone and try out different styles and trends they wouldn’t have considered otherwise. They build consumer confidence and are a vital part of any fashion brand.

Planning and executing photoshoots takes up a big chunk of our time as fashion entrepreneurs – even if you’re working on a small scale and a low budget. It takes a lot of creative ideas and considerations to ensure you’re offering a fresh perspective whilst always staying true to your brand. One of the most important features of any photoshoot is the location – whether you’re shooting for Instagram or a website with a million monthly visitors. While nature is often the easiest, cheapest and most beautiful place to fall back on, sometimes our fashion photo stories call for that little bit extra. And this is where Airbnb has established itself as a heaven-send: unusual, captivating backdrops that allow for a stylish and team building photoshoot experience with all the comforts of a weekend away.

Here are the five best Airbnbs for fashion photoshoots in Africa!

Colourful, Modern Moroccan Design in the Heart of Chaouen

One look at this Airbnb listing and you’ll find yourself immediately overcome with a myriad of funky ideas for your next fashion photoshoot. Painted in different shades of the traditional colour of this town, namely blue, the interiors of this cozy little townhouse offer a fusion of traditional and modern Moroccan design complete with intricate tile work and brass ornaments. This is the perfect backdrop for a fun fashion spread and a great setting for a team building experience with your staff.

The Brandy Bus – Parked in a Quiet Paradise in Karen

If your next collection has an air of bohemia, why not target a new generation of sustainable, tiny-house dwellers by using the Brandy Bus as the backdrop for your next photo session? Parked in a quiet paradise in Karen, a suburb on the outskirts of Nairobi, this is the ideal location and scenery for a shoot that evokes feelings of freedom, nature and spring/summer vibes. For just $110 a night, the Brandy Bus sleeps six people and offers the perfect interior décor and exterior environment for stunning images that will bring your garments to life through visual storytelling.

City Penthouse in Central Cape Town

For a business casual setting that serves to frame powerful, elegant women steadily rising to the top, this City Penthouse in central Cape Town is an ideal choice. With floor to ceiling windows offering stunning views of Table Top Mountain and Lion’s Head, the living room of this apartment functions as the ideal backdrop for a fashion fairytale: a woman who went from rags to textile riches and a killer penthouse. If you want to encourage your followers to follow the same mindset through their stylistic choices, splurge on this fancy setting for your next photoshoot.

Baobab Cottage on the Nile

For an unforgettable experience and incredible photo opportunities, combine work and leisure during a weekend stay at the Baobab Cottage overlooking the River Nile in Jinja. This A-framed, thatched roof house looks as though it was taken straight from a picture-book and it is sure to inspire many a narrative surrounding your latest collection or holiday style. Perched on a cliff, with views of the vast river, this tranquil setting brings many a feeling and thought bubbling to the surface – which is the same thing you want from your designs or style choices.

1940’s Private Villa – Charming Retreat in the City of Cairo

If your next collection happens to celebrate vintage cuts and textures, where better to emphasize these trends than in a 1940’s villa in the historic, bustling city of Cairo? This sweet little retreat from the outside world is full of surprising and beautifully decorative, vintage design features that will captivate your followers as much as the product you’re selling. Located in Heliopolis, the eclectic mix of furniture within this villa pays homage to its surrounding city. With its own little private garden and patio space, this is a fantastic Airbnb pad for memorable Stories and awesome photo spreads.

 Artsy Studio in Dakar

This is the perfect hideout for stressed out fashion entrepreneurs who are looking for a retreat that will tickle their creative senses, give them the space to pose with the many creative, artistic features of this brightly colourful studio apartment, and relax into a new phase of their work process. You don’t always need to go all out with your photoshoots – sometimes a few simple life Stories and cross promotions will bring all the good karma you need to succeed in the world of fashion and branding.

Vibrant Contemporary Architecture & Pool

For an urban chic spread, this vibrant piece of contemporary architecture with its very own pool of possibilities will motivate you to think outside the box and use the interior backdrop to highlight your designs in a punctuating and artistic manner. With exciting decorative features sprinkled throughout this entire Johannesburg home, you’ll have plenty of background choices to play with and incorporate into your seasonal theme.