Online Event
Thu 17 Sep 2020

Upgrade Yourself: Fashion & Identity

with Louise Gray and newcomer Thea Siwale

FREE
Thu 17 Sep 2020
13.00 - 14.00
Online Event
Streamed Live

Join designer Louise Gray and emerging fashion talent Thea Siwale as both share insight into their individual practices, what motivates them to communicate their messages and ideals of positivity and creativity.

As an accomplished designer, creative director, consultant and educator, Louise will introduce her experiences from runway, performance to manifesto, and her role as a mentor to so many.

Recent Fashion Communication graduate and content producer Thea drew her experiences and photography skills together to create online platform Better Than Honey celebrating all body types, ethnicities and abilities.

Both will answer your questions around promoting collaboration and community, building an audience, and how to communicate your most powerful voice within the creative industries and our wider society. 

Tune in here

Upgrade Yourself: Peer Exchange is our new digital strand of the Creative Careers & Skills programme at Somerset House, bringing you bite-size snippets of information, innovation and inspiration over lunch-time sessions.  

Reaching out and connecting you to our Somerset House Studios Artist community, various colleagues of Somerset House Trust, Somerset House Exchange Members as well as with our peers and industry friends within the wider creative industries. 

About the speakers

Louise Gray has gained a reputation for questioning the rules, questioning everything, celebrating the odd, artful and pledges individualism. Louise trained at The Glasgow School of Art and Central Saint Martin’s. This heady mix of textile disciplines with fashion background coupled with an open and forward attitude lends itself to a style and opinion that makes the Louise Gray world an interesting place. Louise has shown her collections at London Fashion Week for 12 seasons. She most recently designed the first women’s collection for women for Norton and Sons, Savile Row, where her designed woven textiles can be also made to order. She has worked and collaborated with Marques’ Almeida, Brora, Judy Blame, Lane Crawford-Hong Kong, Nicholas Kirkwood and the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as costume designs for Director Wayne McGregor at the English National Opera. 

Thea Siwale is a recent Fashion Communications graduate and content producer. Her research consists of exploring the female body through photography; exposing bodies she felt needed more representation. Her work looks at capturing hidden areas such as blemishes and is mostly unedited with the goal of being real and honest. Thea has created her platform, Better Than Honey, an organisation aimed at representing women from different ethnicities, abilities, and sizes; with a goal to celebrate all bodies, bringing women together. Through her channel she is collaborating and showcasing other talented creatives, with interviews, portfolios, and image galleries. 

With thanks to the Maria Bjornson Memorial Fund for its support.

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