‘Growing up in London and having access to the city’s cultural institutions really allowed me to develop my interest in fashion. I remember visiting the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at the Barbican in 2014; it was the first time I really saw fashion and its possibilities. When looking at or making art, I’ve always been interested in the way things are presented and how materials are used. In school, I got slated by my art teachers for creating work that they thought wasn’t smart enough. With my design work, however, I seemed to excel.

‘I think there is something naff about literally referencing art in design. Rather than doing that, I am inspired by an artist’s vision: the way they present and sense things.

‘I recently saw a show by Wolfgang Tillmans at Galerie Buchholz in Berlin, in which he presented large-scale images of shipping crates and supercomputers. I love the way he documents the world, and how he makes me think more deeply about things I do every day – such as using the internet. When I saw these images of computing structures through which all our information passes, it suddenly made them real, physical, in a completely new way.

‘Tillmans also runs an exhibition space called Between Bridges in Berlin and London. There, in 2023, I saw Juan Pablo Echeverri’s exhibition ‘Identidad Perdida’, and it really stuck with me. Echeverri was a Queer Colombian artist who died quite young in 2022. The show featured a series of portraits he’d done throughout his life, as well his films, in which he plays different characters tied to the topic of gender identity. I found seeing these videos full of love and life straight after his passing very emotional; it brought up a lot of questions in me about the fragility of humans and the fragility of life.

‘I saw some of Isa Genzken’s early work at K21 in Düsseldorf, including her ‘Ellipsoid’ and ‘Hyperbole’ sculptures from the 1970s and 1980s. My mind was blown by her acute sensitivity to detail: The subtleties in the lines that define the work, her choice of materials, and the craft of the sculptures’ construction are awe-inspiring. I strongly relate to that sensitivity to detail and materials, and apply it to my own work as well.

‘There is something deeply satisfying about Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work. I saw their exhibition in 2022 at the Met in New York; their photographs are so focused and well executed. The design language of the structures they documented is a language I bring into my own work as well. They managed to remain exciting by doing one thing – documenting industrial structures – in many different ways, which I can very much relate to as a fashion designer who’s required to churn out collections while creating a body of work that stays focused. The aim is to try and always make it exciting – and I think that they did.

‘Another artist duo I love is Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings. They combine traditional techniques such as fresco with scenes that are very culturally relevant, and I find the juxtaposition between this ancient technique and their hyper-current subject matter really funny. Their work is clever and I’m just all-around obsessed with it. I discovered them in ‘Queer Spaces: London, 1980s – Today' at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2019, for which they had documented the closure of gay bars across the UK. I have been following them ever since. 

‘I also enjoyed Kevin Brennan’s graduation film at the Royal Academy. In the opening scene, a character puts on his AirPods, walks into a house, and proceeds to shoot someone who I think is his own mum. It only gets more twisted and demented after that, including a scene with zombies in a hotel room. It feels like such a messed up work and I would never be able to think of something like that myself, which I like.

‘Wolfgang, Hannah, Rosie, and Kevin are also friends of mine. I would say that there’s currently a scene of artists in London that are doing quite exciting things. It includes Jack O’Brien, who’s got his show coming up at the Camden Arts Centre; Gray Wielebinski, who just had his big show at the ICA; Nicole Coulson; Michael Ho… these are all artists I am close to.

‘I currently don’t feel the pull to start collecting, but I’d like to see more shows. Whenever I know something is on, I’ll go and check it out: if I really like it, I’ll go back. That’s my way of collecting: by seeing things, rather than buying them.’