How Shoeby and Brandmachine Built On-Brand Fashion Models Together
About Shoeby
Shoeby is one of the largest fashion retail chains in the Netherlands. Founded in 1981 by John and Mieke van Deursen with a single 70 square meter shop in Den Bosch, the brand has grown to more than 230 stores and a loyal community of over 700,000 customers. Its tagline, "Here For You," reflects a clear positioning: Shoeby offers great service and personal styling alongside its own trend-driven fashion collections for the whole family.
Shoeby dresses women, men, girls and boys, all under one brand. Everything the customer sees carries the Shoeby name, which means a single brand identity has to hold across every segment of the catalog. That catalog is broad, fast-moving, and sold everywhere the customer is, across 230+ physical stores, a webshop running since 2008, and a mobile app.
The Challenge
For a brand of Shoeby's size, AI-generated imagery only works if three things are true.
First, the models have to be exactly on brand, since they represent the face of every product across the catalog.
Second, the product has to be represented accurately and true to reality. A generated image that flatters a garment but misrepresents its cut, fabric or fit is worse than no image at all, both for the customer and for returns. The bar is both at once: dead accurate to the actual item, and still highly appealing and unmistakably Shoeby.
Third, the workflow has to scale and automate, because a retailer producing imagery for a constantly refreshing catalog cannot rely on slow, manual, one-off processes.
Getting all three right is not something a brand can buy off the shelf. It needs a tool that can be shaped around real retail demands, and a partner willing to build toward them. That is the relationship Shoeby and Brandmachine set out to create.
The Partnership
1. Getting the Models Exactly Right
Shoeby came to Brandmachine early and gave the team their trust before the tooling was fully mature. They started where it mattered most to them: a detailed setup of their Fashion Models. Finding the perfect on-brand model was a major topic, so the two teams worked closely and iterated together on each round of changes until the models genuinely represented the brand.
That back and forth set the tone for everything that followed. It was not a vendor delivering an asset, it was two brands refining something side by side.
2. Staying True to the Product
Shoeby was just as clear about the garment itself, since the customer is buying the item and not the image. The process starts with the real piece: it is uploaded, scanned and analyzed into a prompt. That prompt stays editable, so if the analysis miscounts the buttons on a shirt, someone corrects it. Reference detail images cover the details that have to be exact.
A quality control step then reviews the result, and an AI photo editor handles the last small fixes by hand. The more of the production that gets automated, the more that check earns its place.
3. A Real Feedback Loop
Shoeby used the platform first as serious testers: trying features, giving detailed feedback, talking through possibilities, and being clear about their demands. That input was invaluable. In some cases they pointed at capabilities Brandmachine already planned to build, validating the roadmap. In others, they made the significance of a missing feature far more visible, which moved it up the priority list.
This is the kind of feedback that only comes from a real, high-volume retailer using a tool against real work, and it made the product better for everyone.
4. Automation That Fit a Big Company
As a large organization, automation was a central concern for Shoeby. Manual, image-by-image production does not scale to a catalog their size. Their needs lined up directly with the development of Brandmachine's Shot Planner, the tool built to plan and automate image production at volume. Shoeby's perspective helped sharpen what automation at retail scale actually has to do.
5. Into the Design Workflow
The collaboration now reaches into Shoeby's design department. Their fashion designers are actively working with and testing Brandmachine's new designer tool, helping improve it from inside a real design team's workflow. The partnership has moved from getting imagery right to becoming part of how Shoeby's designers work.
The Results
The value of this partnership shows less in a single campaign and more in how the two brands grew together.
On-Brand Models
Through close iteration, Shoeby reached fashion models that truly represent the brand, the foundation everything else is built on.
Products Shown as They Are
Accuracy stayed non-negotiable throughout. Scanning the real garment, editable prompts, reference detail images and a quality control step keep the imagery true to the actual item, while still looking as good as the brand deserves.
A Product Shaped by Real Demands
Shoeby's early trust and candid feedback directly influenced what Brandmachine built, from validating planned features to surfacing the ones that mattered most.
Automation at Scale
Their focus on automation aligned with the development of Shot Planner, helping ensure the tool fits the needs of a large, fast-moving retailer.
A Deepening Collaboration
What began with model setup now extends into the design department, with Shoeby's fashion designers helping shape the next generation of tooling.
A Considered Rollout
AI imagery at Shoeby is rolling out step by step, and that is by design. Not every image on shoeby.nl is AI-generated today. The imagery moves into production where it clears the brand's bar, alongside traditional photography, which is exactly the pace a standard this strict demands.
Key Takeaways
"We didn't just adopt a tool, we helped build it. Getting our models exactly on brand was the start, and the partnership grew from there."
Lindsay Aerts, AI Lead (Product & Enablement), Shoeby
For large retailers, the question is rarely whether AI imagery can produce a nice picture. It is whether a platform can be made exactly on brand, kept honest to the actual product, and automated enough to keep up, and whether the company behind it will build toward your reality. Shoeby's experience shows what happens when a brand engages early, gives honest feedback, and treats the relationship as a true partnership: the models get right, the products stay true, the automation fits, and the collaboration keeps expanding into new parts of the business.
Brandmachine is an AI-powered creative platform that helps e-commerce brands generate professional product photography and campaign imagery while maintaining complete brand consistency.