REDValentino has partnered up with Central Saint Martins in a new creative project. Ten senior students from the university’s MA Fashion Image course have each delivered a reinterpretation of the brand’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection.
Photographers, stylists and art directors are among the image-makers taking part. Through tapping into their inner creativity, themes of romance, intimacy and adolescence become the building blocks of the finished works, all interpreted through different mediums.
REDValentino set out to create an idea factory, with the aim of fostering a deep understanding of perspective, crafting meaningful content and ultimately bringing dreams to reality.
The collaboration includes works from Aparna Aji, Bluebell Ross, Eomji Sim, Isabella Soliman, Kallan Hughes, Lowri Cooper, Martus Chai, Phoebe Wilkinson, Ruby Pluhar and Yao Peng. Schön! spoke with three of the participants to hear about their individual take on the project, the struggles faced during isolation, and how they have communicated their own ideas while incorporating the brand’s coding.
With each participant delivering their own perspective, how would you best summarise your interpretation of the REDValentino Spring/Summer 2021 collection?
I would summarise my interpretation of the REDValentino Spring/Summer 2021 collection as one that is very free, joyous and immersive. It interprets those dressed in REDValentino as desiring new experiences and having a sense of wonder and ambition in the world.
Where did you find your biggest source of inspiration for this project?
It is inspired by my personal playful experiences of adolescence with friends in nature.
With the pandemic disrupting our everyday lives, how did you adapt your working style to these extraordinary changes?
I had to be more thought-through with my decisions and plans. I had to problem-solve a lot to find ways to work with the pandemic rather than against it. I worked with people and locations that were familiar with me already and prepared any set design from home. Completing the project felt like I took the pandemic’s power away.
Having developed your own concept, what message do you hope to communicate with your work?
I would like to communicate a sense of uniqueness and ambition. I would like my viewer to reimagine our ability to move freely and commune with one another once more. It is about opening back up to the many joys of life and expressing ourselves.
With each participant delivering their own perspective, how would you best summarise your interpretation of the REDValentino Spring/Summer 2021 collection?
My interpretation was very girly, playful, bold yet delicate. It’s a tribute to the stickers you’d find from the stationary shop as a kid.
How did you align your personal aesthetic with the coding of the brand?
I incorporated my playful and retro y2k style to align with the brand’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection.
While working on this project, did you experience a sense of isolation during the pandemic? If so, how did you overcome this?
Most definitely, I was feeling lonely and isolated. I did the shoot with my bubble household, and I was glad that they gave me the support I needed.
Where do you see yourself after graduating from Central Saint Martins?
Hopefully an editor for a London-based magazine.
With each participant delivering their own perspective, how would you best summarise your interpretation of the REDValentino Spring/Summer 2021 collection?
My project aimed to explore the individual identities of the models I worked with, collaborating with them and curating an image that best suited their personalities and their perspective on what digital comfort means to them. I developed concepts with each model, to celebrate how digital spaces allow them to live out a part of themselves innate to their personality that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
What did you find to be the most important brand element of REDValentino to portray in your imagery?
I associate REDValentino with excitement and life, with a carefree spirit. These were all elements I looked to explore and portray in my project. More importantly, I see REDValentino as a brand that celebrates strong women, who look to the brand as an extension of themselves. I attempted to portray this through collaborating with the models to collectively design and curate the look that best fit with their identity. Allowing them to explore themselves and the REDValentino Spring/Summer 2021 collection in a digital space.
How did you adapt your working style to the changes brought about by the pandemic?
My project looked to explore digital spaces and their ability and perhaps special aptitude to facilitate people exploring their identity and their aesthetic preferences and presence. So, in many ways, the pandemic, despite all of the numerous disruptions it caused, made this theme and topic even more relevant, pressing and vital.
The project focuses on individual creativity. How have you included your own personal vision and aesthetic in this project?
With my own work, I aim to encourage the people I work with to be able to take control of the way they are being seen, and to reveal aspects of themselves that aren’t obvious at first glance. As a person of colour, digital spaces have allowed me to hone my experiences as a mixed race individual and all the intricacies that make up me as a person, through a creative lens. This is something I was able to bring to the project.
Discover more from REDValentino on the label’s website.
words. Grace Calton
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