Some work is a statement. This was mine. In 2016 — before the industry caught up to the conversation — I conceived an all-female bicycle editorial cast exclusively with Black models. It was purposeful. I was pushing back on what fashion kept presenting as the default — who gets to be the image of freedom, of joy, of aspiration. My answer: put it somewhere the industry is already looking. 

So I pitched the concept to photographer Sarah Kehoe, we produced it together, and it ran in Elle Thailand — an international fashion magazine, a mainstream audience. Girls on bikes, head-to-toe denim, wind and sun and motion. Playful, girlie, free. Freedom as the aesthetic and the point. I didn’t make it to be provocative. I made it because that’s where true strength, beauty, and femininity exist for me. 

Publication: Elle Thailand. 

Year: 2016. 

Photographer: Sarah Kehoe. 

Role: Concept, creative direction, casting, styling.