The company behind the NYC photo studio made for Instagram influencers is opening gorgeous new spaces in Brooklyn and Los Angeles

Paige Leskin

Jan 9, 2020, 22:46 IST

The company behind the NYC photo studio made for Instagram influencers is opening gorgeous new spaces in Brooklyn and Los Angeles

Village Studio opened its first photo studio in 2018 in New York City for influencers and brands in need of Instagram-ready backdrops for shooting ads and promos.
The team is now opening two new locations: a house in Los Angeles' West Hollywood and a $15,000-a-month loft in Brooklyn, of which Business Insider was given an exclusive tour inside.
These studios run essentially like a WeWork: brands book the space to produce content, while Village Studio does the upkeep and ensures the space looks modern and photo-ready.
Village Studio is a product of an influencer marketing agency founded by Vickie Segar, who told Business Insider the company's goal is to create an Instagrammable "alternate reality."
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For influencers and social media users everywhere, finding the ultimate photo-ready backdrop for an Instagram post can be a strenuous and fruitless task.

The desire for that perfect aesthetic, which can be difficult to find in the real world, has led to an influx of photogenic pop-up experiences for consumers, such as the Color Factory and the Museum of Ice Cream. Meanwhile, brands and influencers are often left to reserving pricey studios and staging massive productions in rented hotel rooms.

Village Studio was launched to fill the gap existing in the influencer economy, which could become a $15 billion industry by 2022. Born as an offshoot of influencer marketing agency Village Marketing, the company provides a clean, über-modern apartment space that's designed to be used for influencer photo shoots.

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The team opened up its first studio in New York City's trendy SoHo neighborhood in October 2018, a $15,000-a-month apartment filled with millennial pink furniture. The studio was a massive success: Village Studio was profitable after just three months in business, and was booked solid three months in advance, Village Marketing founder Vickie Segar told Business Insider.

Now, Village Studio is opening spaces in two more locations: Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Segar says the new spaces will give brands more design and aesthetic variety for their future influencer-led campaigns. All three locations do share similar characteristics that make them ideal for photo shoots, Segar said: big windows that let in natural light; bare, clean walls; and open-floor plans, which allow for photos captured at any photo angle imaginable.

Business Insider was given exclusive photos of the new photo studios, and a walk-through of Village Studio's Brooklyn location. Take a look at the three Village Studio spaces, which have been designed with influencers in mind.

Village Studio opened its first photo studio in October 2018 in New York City's SoHo neighborhood, an epicenter of trendy restaurants, fashion, and influencer culture. "Everything has to be perfect all the time," Segar told Business Insider.

Segar described the studio's aesthetic as "feminine." Much of the furniture is a blush color known as "millennial pink," and the space is filled with clean, white detailing and bare walls.

Village Studio pays $15,000 a month to rent the penthouse, which comes with a rooftop garden overlooking the city skyline. In 2019, the studio welcomed celebrities shooting magazine covers, like Emma Roberts and Lea Michele, and business stars such as Alexis Ohanian.

In contrast, Village Studio's new space in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood is what Segar describes as "California-neutral with a little bit of a twist."

Instead of millennial pink, the Brooklyn space is filled with darker and more neutral tones, like black and gray and brown, which some brands may prefer. "I felt like we were alienating an entire group of fans [with pink]," Segar said.

Each Village Studio location keeps its walls pretty bare. However, the accessories are carefully chosen to be interactive and easily changeable. Segar showed Business Insider the "prop closet," filled with home decor essentials like books, plants, and vases that brands can choose to incorporate into their shoots.

It was important to Segar that the Brooklyn kitchen be a large and wide-open space, a feat which is hard to achieve in New York. The kitchen's look makes it ideal for content that involves cooking and food prep.

The Brooklyn apartment is a massive 3,500 square feet: It has four bathrooms and two bathrooms, a kitchen and dining room, a bedroom, a library, and two living room setups. Village Studio even constructed an additional wall to create more rooms for photo shoots.

"It's not about the studio. It's about the content produced in the studio," Segar said. "This is an underground business that we are professionalizing."

The library in the Brooklyn Studio is the only room with a dark hue on its walls. It's designed to have a more masculine feel, from its leather couch to its dark-stained bookshelf (with books sorted by color, of course).

Each Village Studio features a dressing room, where influencers are able to get dressed for shoots and change between each set-up. Segar says many brands will bring in hair stylists and makeup artists, as well as droves of their own props and accessories for photo shoots.

Segar estimates that it cost between $100,000 and $150,000 for Village Studio to acquire and set up its Brooklyn space. The rent costs Village Studio $15,000 a month, but the company didn't pay out of pocket for the furniture — it was provided by a partner luxury brand, Maiden Home.

Segar estimates that it cost between $100,000 and $150,000 for Village Studio to acquire and set up its Brooklyn space. The rent costs Village Studio $15,000 a month, but the company didn't pay out of pocket for the furniture — it was provided by a partner luxury brand, Maiden Home.

Segar says that around 80% of its customers who rent out Village Studio are brands, who will produce an enormous amount of content and often bring in influencers for photos. Village Studio charges brands anywhere between $3,000 and $15,000, depending on how much furniture they want moved around or removed.

Meanwhile, individual influencers — the other 20% of clients — are able to access Village Studio for free. Because of the access Village Studio provides to these influencers, there are "at least 1,000" on the waitlist to use the space, Segar said.

While the New York locations are only apartments, the Village Studio space on the West Coast is an entire standalone house. It's located in Los Angeles' West Hollywood neighborhood, which is known for its art galleries and nightlife.

To reflect a more West Coast feel, the Village Studio in Los Angeles is filled with darker shades and modern looks. It took Village Studio nine months to design and modify the house.

The highlight of the space, however, is its outdoor area. The house has an infinity zero-edge pool and spa, and is surrounded with tall thick greenery to shroud the house — and its influencer guests — in privacy.

Segar said that she thinks Village Studio will only lead to similar spaces that cater specifically to influencers. "I feel like we have this gold little gem here," she said.

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