Vacationers in Santorini are willing to shell out large sums of money to capture iconic “flying dress” pictures on the island in elaborate photo shoots.
For the last few years, Flying Dress Photo’s photographers on the Greek island of Santorini have spent their summers capturing the same image over and over: tourists posing against a backdrop of whitewashed houses and blue domes while donning luxurious satin gowns with ultra-long trains.
“Flying dress” photos, started on and have since become popular in other tourist spots like Dubai, Tulum and Italy.
At an average of eight flying-dress photo shoots a day, each priced upwards of €550 ($605) per hour per person, this one small business—whose entire model is based on delivering a single type of highly Instagrammable vacation photo—can bring in almost a half-million dollars in sales in just four months.
Many tourists post pictures of the stunning Greek island on their social media accounts, and these posts bring even more travelers to the island each year.
Flying dress photo shoots on Santorini
The “flying dress” trend has taken over social media.
“Flying dress” pictures usually feature women standing above the famous village of Oia, known for its , with their colorful dresses unfurled by the wind.
On Wednesdays … 💕
📸:
— LaCrisha Burton Saba (@LaCrishaBurton)
The impressive photographs are highly sought after, and many people use them as mementos of their trip to the Greek island while others use them to commemorate their engagement or pregnancy.
The dramatic dress trailing behind the models provides a stunning contrast of color against the Cycladic architecture below and the blue sea in the distance.
“Women really fall in love with this experience and feel like Greek goddesses in the dresses,” says Evgenia Volokitina, who founded with her husband, Kirill Babenkov, in 2016.
“After each photo shoot, there’s so much excitement about how the pictures came out. Many women look at the photos and can’t believe that glamorous woman is them! We see this reaction all the time and we love it!”
Flying dress photoshoot in Santorini, Greece 🇬🇷 💃🏽
— Sisu (@lovelynnx_)
These unique photo shoots, which are most often taken in Santorini but have spread to other destinations, are incredibly popular.
These photo shoots are so popular with tourists that travel companies and cruises have begun to introduce travel packages that include the shoots in their prices.
“It was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will cherish forever,” Jillian Sawa of Chicago, who booked a photo shoot with her fiancé, Christopher Taylor told USA Today recently. “I knew this was something I wanted to do ever since I first saw photos someone posted in the Girls LOVE Travel® group on Facebook.”
With more than 60 dresses to choose from in regular and plus sizes, Sawa opted for the Tiffany blue Number 35 “because that color looks good on blondes and I wanted a more cooling effect with the sea.”
Despite its popularity on Instagram, Santorini is much more than just a photo shoot location. Its thousands of years of rich history, along with its unique character, offer so much more to fortunate visitors.