The Caterpillar brand lends itself to playing in the dirt, but that’s not what you see here. It’s crumbled Oreo cookies. They’re easier to size and shape, though tougher not to eat. The buttons are pea gravel scooped up from the photographer’s driveway. The CAT logo is a swatch created by our in-house embroidery team.

Our stylist shopped for seeds at a local feed mill using a criteria they seemed unfamiliar with: seed size and beauty. She created a clay base, and while the clay was moist, placed every seed you see here by hand. The stripes on the shirt are sunflower seeds. The burlap background is a piece of one of the seed bags.

These French Bulldogs – Bella and Boo – belong to a Lands’ End Creative Director. The dogs were photographed separately, so they’d look at the camera instead of each other, and the two shots were merged digitally. The polos were fetched from Lands’ End Kids.

This American Veterinary Medical Association cover began with a wet clay base. The stylist shopped for the bones at a local pet shop, size and color being her criteria. Each dog bone was pressed into a wet clay base. The shirt buttons? Cat treats.

The post QUESTION: What does it take to create a great catalog cover? ANSWER: Seeds. Dogs. Bones. Gravel. appeared first on The Lands' End Blog.

We had them professionally tested in a university laboratory to see what they could handle (from freezing temperatures to heavy rain). But that wasn’t enough for us.

So we called in the real pros.
Lands’ End writer Alex and his son, Eli.
And some colorful friends who have access to top-secret outerwear testing equipment.

Watch Alex and Eli put the boy’s Squall® Parka through their own test.

See how the Squall® Jacket held up against a top-secret freeze ray.

The post The Waterproof Squall® – Tested By Kids (And Cartoons) appeared first on The Lands' End Blog.