Stella McCartney is my main inspiration as a fashion communicator because I connect strongly with the brand’s values of creating conscious luxury fashion.
They strive to lead the industry's sustainable efforts, with new technologies and materials to create the best product rather than the cheapest. Such as their trade marked material Mylo which is a mycelium based vegan leather.
Stella’s campaigns are very playful with colour and it makes her fashion feel approachable to a younger audience even with the luxury price tag. Their informative approach to educating sustainability, yet use of queer models, such as Carla Delavigne, and high-energy campaigns to celebrate individuality makes their conscious efforts feel less tedious and generic. This approach is instead considered and vital in bringing their beautifully crafted world to life.
Harley Weir, is a long-time collaborator of Stella McCartney and is well known for her intimate images that are carefully composed with a coordinated sense of colour and composition. She graduated from Central Saint Martins as a fine artist and taught herself photography, this comes across in her work with her painterly and highly textural images.
I am influenced by her photography style due to my love of textiles and passion to bring the two together, which I feel is mastered in the above image. The models maintain a close proximity to the camera so that their neutral garments become the main attraction and this is strengthened by the illustration circling them out from the backdrop, it allows Stella’s designs to be seen as indifferent and unique to the other textiles discarded behind and conveys a sense of pride in knowing that conscious fashion will last a lifetime.
When looking in to the global impacts of textile waste, I was intrigued by a ghanian brand The Revival. Their 2023 collaboration with the V&A features their handmade accessories crafted from upcycling the western waste dumped in Ghana.
15 million articles of clothing are sent from western countries to Ghana a week and this shocking fact heavily inspired me in my latest work "Royalty" to partner with Amira Suleman, an African designer using sustainable materials sourced from her home country, such as raffia yarn from palm trees.
The image is photographed by the brands leader Yayrah Agbofah, his use of composition and location complement each other by having his model standing static in the chaotic city scene it signifies the need to slow fashion down. In my work I often use locations as I feel it develops the characters I create and builds a sense of narrative, this is explored in my work "Knitty Gritty" where my model is stood in front of an industrial factory and conveys stress in her body language reflecting my desire to maintain traditional craftsmanship.