Derbyshire boudoir duo are TikTok royalty as they spread the message of ‘body positivity’

Foxlow Photography is the joint partnership of Jon Davies and Danielle Cartwright, who run the studio that specialises in boudoir photoshoots.

Based in Wirksworth, it’s the unlikely location for TikTok royalty, but with over 350,000 followers and millions of likes, they’re brewing up a storm on social media.

Having gained experience in the world of photography elsewhere, Jon explined how they got started as Foxlow Photography, “We both worked in high street studios for about ten years each, if not a little more. I moved to Matlock about six years ago and I was keeping an eye out for a studio. I found the building that we are currently in, Hopkinsons House, which is an old merchant’s house from the 1600’s, I knew it was the perfect location for a studio.

“At that point I got in touch with Danielle and asked, ‘What do you think?’ and the next thing you know, we’ve opened Foxlow.”

They started Foxlow Photography in the beginning of 2019, and as a studio they started off doing general photoshoots, but as Danielle explained, they quickly found their passion, “It started off a lot more general, so we did studio portraits, families, kids and even dogs.

Boudoir was always going to be a part of it, but I don’t think we envisioned that it would be everything. Now we do boudoir exclusively for the past two years, that’s our specialism.” It was the thing that we were both most passionate about, the thing that we enjoyed the most, but also the thing that was the most rewarding - the reactions and responses to clients, hearing the impact it had on people’s lives was such a dramatic thing, such a rewarding and enjoyable thing for us. It’s a lot of fun as well!”

A boudoir shoot isn’t something you experience every day, but should you decide to take the plunge, Danielle certainly has a wealth of experience to make you feel confident and at ease; “They should expect to be nervous, I think that’s the first thing! Everyone is always nervous when they come to us, because it’s outside of their comfort zone, they’ve never done a shoot before, well most of them.”

“When they come to us, they start out with hair and makeup, we sit down together with a coffee, we go through all the outfits they’ve brought, and we chat about the shoot. Then they have their makeup and hair done. That’s a really nice way for them to relax before the shoot, as well look great in the photos”

“We work with really amazing hair and makeup artists, her job when our clients arrive is to work with the lady in front of her to create a look that they love, whether they want to go dramatic and glam, or keep it more natural.”

Once in the studio, you will be under the guidance of both Jon and Danielle, “Myself and Danielle work together in the studio, Danielle is an eagle eye when it comes to attention to detail. Helping to style the shoot, making sure the hair looks perfect, and my job is directing the shoot, lighting, taking pictures and posing guidance. Then they’ll come back maybe the following day to view the photos”

“Danielle provides a lot of guidance before a shoot, we send them a copy of our magazine we created during lockdown, it has loads of advice what to wear, where to shop but Danielle is also on hand. She’s been described by clients previously as `The Fairy Godmother of boudoir’.”

As with most businesses, having a good social media presence has almost become essential, however, the growth of their brand on Facebook and TikTok has been

astronomical; TikTok has been incredible for exposing people to what we do.”

“I downloaded it out of curiosity to be honest, it was during lockdown, and I had time to kill. What’s this TikTok thing people talk about? Until that point, I thought it was all teenagers doing dance routines, but it was amazing to see that anything you’re interested in is out there”

“So, I thought, let’s try something and have a go with it! I don’t think either of us anticipated that we have millions of likes from the other side of the world, it’s crazy! “We’ve had videos go viral in Mexico, it’s not that useful as a business, but it’s very flattering. But what it has done is enabled people from all over the country to see what we do, we have people travelling from Scotland, Cornwall, Norfolk, Wales, and we even had a couple of clients from America.”

MORE TO READ: 15 new restaurants, cafés and takeaways to open in Chesterfield and Derbyshire over the last 12 months

Both Jon and Danielle are passionate about spreading ‘body positivity’, so it doesn’t matter how old you are, or what type of body you have, perhaps a boudoir photoshoot is just the thing to give you a bit of confidence; “The number of ladies who have said ‘I’ve always loved the idea of doing something like this, but I thought I was too old, or I’m not the right size, I thought I didn’t have the right posing knowledge or I didn’t know how to do my makeup, they always thought there was something in the way. I think in a way our job is to get rid of those hurdles for them, to do their makeup, help them to choose their outfits, show them how to pose. Anyone can do it, no matter their ability or background.”

Their clients, often nicknamed ‘Vixens’, are also keen to spread this positivity: “All of our shoots are completely private, but a lot of people do share them because they’ve been inspired by seeing someone else’s video on TikTok, so they want to inspire somebody else. It’s important to us that we’re not just showing models, we’re showing women of any age, any shape, any size. Everyone is welcome and anyone can do it because everything can be adapted.”

As with a lot of Derbyshire businesses, COVID has had a big impact on their success, however Jon and Danielle saw this as an opportunity, and worked hard whilst they were closed to make sure they succeeded: “We opened in January of 2019, during the first year of lockdown we were closed for 7 months out of the 12, it did have a big impact on us, it was brutal. As a business that was starting to pick up and become a thing, all of sudden we had to close for an extended period of time.

"What we did during that time we made sure we continued to focus on the business, to focus on showing people what we do, keeping them updated, improving our skills, we created a magazine to send to our clients. Obviously, we experimented with TikTok and redid our website. We tried to make the most of the time we were given, to stop ourselves going insane. We had a lot of clients that had shoots booked, we didn’t want those people worrying that we were going to disappear, and they were going to lose the money that they had paid for their shoots, that was never going to happen.”

“We are so grateful that almost everybody was able to just move their shoot and wait, only a handful of shoots had to cancel. When we came out of lockdown, everything was insane, we were so busy!”

It’s not only Jon and Danielle that are reaping the benefits of a successful local business, it’s also contributing to the local economy; “People do come to us from all over the UK, the number of people who say how lovely it is around here, they make a weekend of it.”

Fancy a photoshoot? Take a look at their website www.foxlowphotography.com, join their group on Facebook www.Facebook.com/groups/foxlowladies, or check out their incredibly popular TikTok account – www.tiktok.com/@foxlowboudoir