One thing we’ve tried to keep consistent at Vaer is the idea that our watches should exist comfortably in the real world. They’re tools first, and like most good tools, they should move easily between environments without demanding too much attention. That philosophy tends to shape how we photograph them as well.
Each spring we like to spend a day shooting a lookbook that reflects that idea. For the Spring 2026 guide, we kept things intentionally simple: a small crew of five friends, a few cars, one motorcycle, and a loose plan to move from the interior hills to the coast over the course of the day.
Our friend and longtime Vaer owner Zac Lee Taylor was the star of the shoot. Zac is a proud Texan and professional model (in that order), but more importantly, he’s someone who fits naturally into the environments we like to photograph. He’s a dad, spends a lot of time outdoors, and is as down-to-earth as anyone you’d ever meet.
American Classics
For wardrobe we stayed close to what you might call the American classics: denim shirts, canvas chore coats, knit sweaters, work jackets, boots, and simple tees. Nothing overly styled and nothing overly technical. Just clothing that sits somewhere between workwear and casual outdoor gear.
We also like to incorporate vintage pieces whenever we can. Many of the garments in the shoot were sourced secondhand, and we’re particularly partial to pieces from the 1970s and 1980s—an era when American casualwear and workwear had a certain straightforward durability that still feels relevant today.
Those choices mirror the watches themselves.
Across the shoot Zac rotated through several pieces from the current lineup: the RS1 Rally Chronograph, C5 Tactical Field, G2 and G5 Steel GMTs, the C1 Ceremony, and the DS2 Diver. The watches ranged from compact 36mm field pieces to larger 42mm divers, but the overall idea was to show how naturally they move across different outfits and environments.
That versatility is something we constantly consider when designing watches. A good tool watch shouldn’t feel locked into one particular context. It should look just as natural with a knit sweater on the beach as it does with denim and boots at a ranch.
Ranch Roads And Coastal Hills
The ranch gave us a good place to start the day. Horses, fences, dirt roads, old trucks, everything there has a sense of quiet practicality. It’s the kind of setting where workwear makes sense and where tool watches feel at home.
By late morning, we packed up and headed west through the coastal hills and unpacked a Triumph bike we’d brought on the back of a truck. Southern California has the advantage of compressing a wide range of landscapes into a relatively small area, so the transition from ranchland to the Pacific happens surprisingly quickly.
Around midday, we stopped for lunch at Malibu Seafood, which anyone familiar with that stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway will immediately recognize. After lunch, we continued north along the coast, letting the afternoon light start to soften.
Leo Carrillo At Sunset
The final stop was Leo Carrillo State Beach in North Malibu. By the time we arrived, the sun had started dropping toward the horizon, and the cliffs along the beach were catching that warmer late-afternoon light that photographers tend to wait all day for.
The geography there gives you a lot to work with: sand, rock formations, tide pools, and the Pacific stretching out beyond everything. It provided a natural contrast to the ranch where we had started the morning.
Seeing the watches move through those different environments was really the entire point of the shoot. Ranch, motorcycle, roadside lunch, sunset beach.
Doing More With Less
There’s a tendency in modern brand photography to build increasingly elaborate productions. Bigger crews, larger sets, more equipment, more staging. We’ve generally found that the opposite approach works better for us.
A small group of friends. A lot of watches. Good light. That’s usually enough.
The Spring 2026 Style Guide was built around that principle. The watches are meant to function across the small transitions of a normal day, work, travel, the outdoors, dinner, and the beach.
They’re not designed for one environment. They’re designed to move with you through several.
Spending a full day driving from the ranch to the coast made that idea feel tangible. And looking back through the photos now, the thing I like most is how little needed to change for the watches to stand out in every location.
