How Top Model Rianne Van Rompaey Does a Surfing Road Trip

The fashion world is small, but there’s a lot that can go wrong in the making of a fashion image—it can be rare that a shoot will truly feel like a small gathering of intimate friends just playing, even though it often is. So when W‘s Style Director Sara Moonves and the photographer Colin Dodgson were shooting the Dutch model Rianne van Rompaey, they decided to turn the production into a road trip along the surfer’s coast in Japan, something that Moonves and Dodgson had long talked about. They set out in a van with a tiny team to the beaches along the southeast coast of Japan, winding their way from seaside towns like Kamakura and through the Chiba prefecture (where the 2020 Olympics’ surfing competitions are said to be held). Although van Rompaey doesn’t surf herself (Dodgson does), the light there was striking, and they almost felt like they were holiday. Here, the pictures Moonves captured behind the scenes of the story.