Brenda: 00:10
Hello and welcome to Kiss My Black Side with me, Brenda Emmanus. This is a celebratory look at art from a Black perspective. In this show, we talk to some brilliantly talented creatives who have made their mark in the world of dance, film, fashion, music, theatre, and the visual arts. We discuss their work and inspiration, and then we get to do a little deep dive on issues related to their specific art form.

And as we’re talking, we figured it would be nice to end each programme with a specially commissioned Spoken-Word tribute to our chosen topic, which in this episode is fashion. This podcast is produced by Free Spirit Productions Ltd and brought to you by Sadler’s Wells. Sadler’s Wells is one of the world’s leading dance organisations. And in 2022 they’re celebrating work by Black dance artists with Well Seasoned, a year-long programme of live performances, dance films and more from Black choreographers, dancers, and artists of colour.

My first guest is the name on the tongue of every fashion person `in the know’ that I ask, Who excites you? Hailed as one to watch. Saul Nash is a young designer whose menswear collections combine movement, technical innovation, and sporty sass. His career already boasts prestigious awards such as the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design and the International Woolmark Prize, which celebrates outstanding fashion talent from around the globe. This amongst his other achievements. Welcome Saul!

We’re also joined by a designer of a different generation, but with an equally impressive background. Avis Charles was a graduate of the London School of Fashion and has gone on to amass 40 years in the industry building her own consultancy agency and having the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Victoria Beckham as clients. She works with the Prince’s Trust, has her own silk scarves range, and also finds time to mentor teenagers and design entrepreneurs. Welcome to you too, Avis.

02:19
[MUSIC]

Brenda: 02:25
It’s great to have you both on here, and I’m excited to hear what you person have to say about your own experiences. Having seen and listened to your both and watched your careers.
Saul, I want to start with you and first to say, a huge congratulations to you on a phenomenal year. Winner of the prestigious Woolmark prize, which has changed the lives of some of the world’s best known designers. And it has a prize of over £100,000 to boot. And the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, which celebrates Britain’s young talents who are key to the fashion industry’s role, improving society and diplomacy. As a young creative, you must feel very proud of your achievements already.

Saul: 03:00
Yeah, I’m also quite shocked. I work so hard, and I spend a lot of hours in my studio, so I do my work and I really love what I’m doing. So, you know, to be awarded it is absolutely incredible because it wasn’t something I was expecting I was just working so hard.

Brenda: 03:23
And you’ve been thrown in the spotlight because of how different has life been since winning these accolades?

Saul: 03:28
Erm, well, I’ve tried to maintain a sense of kind of grounding, and so I always keep my family really close around me. It’s been quite lovely. Because, you know, when I go out, I’m surrounded by the industry. But then when I come home, you know, I’m reminded by, you know, I guess where I come from. So, it’s been, it’s been really exciting, but it’s also been a good time to reflect and, you know, think about where I’m heading as a designer.

Brenda: 04:00
And you mentioned fashion and you mentioned, you mentioned the fashion family and you also mentioned your family. What was it all? Who was it that inspired you to come into this industry?

Saul: 04:11
So, it’s kind of a weird journey into the industry. I started off studying performance design, so in the beginning I actually wanted to kind of create performance art, which use dance and movement. It wasn’t, it wasn’t until my final year of my bachelors that central at Martins that I kind of realised I was creating a world because I was using a lot of costumes. But I then realised that I wanted to create something that goes beyond the performance space and something that could kind of live in society and address some of the things that I was exploring in my work in the kind of wider landscape of the world. So, initially it kind of came late to me and it was through this need to, to, to merge performance and fashion that really brought me into fashion.

Brenda: 05:00
Now this podcast is brought to us by Sadler’s Wells, one of the homes of prestigious and international dance in in London. How much has dance been a part of your life? Because I know it’s a major inspiration for you. You mentioned performance.

Saul: 05:14
I’ve been dancing since I was a child, and I guess my mum saw from a young age, this, this kind of drive and need to always move. I had a lot of energy as a child. So, like naturally I started to kind of learn to dance at my local youth centre. And then this led on to me studying dance. Later I was in a dance company. So that’s how, that’s always been a part of my life. And it still is, like I’m still, I still practise dance whenever I can.

Brenda: 05:46
And how have you managed to emerge there into your, your fashion? I mean, is it a happy marriage?

Saul: 05:54
In the beginning to be honest, it took a long time to kind of harness what I wanted to say and going into the Royal College of Art and having Zoe Broach as a tutor. It really kind of encouraged me to explore who I was and not really hold back. And I think it was through that exploration. At some point I went to Adidas and, you know, I learnt about performance wear because I was always interested in sportswear and the men I grew up around, but just learning the techniques of performance and designing for function, it created this full circle which made me realise exactly what I should be doing as a designer. But it was a long journey to get to this point.

Brenda: 06:38
You’re such a creative soul in the fact that you’re kind of inspired by performance. Does that mean you’re also very practical in your work?

Saul: 06:48
Most definitely. We often, like at the Royal College I’d often showcase my work in performances because I was always interested in the way things move, particularly my garments. It started out as an exploration of how they moved, so it was having dancers coming in and testing it, even moving in it myself, because I guess a lot of my desires come from my own need as a dancer to have clothes that I can move in. So yeah, it is a very active and practical process.

Brenda: 07:23
I don’t see, I don’t think you wake up in the morning and think, “Right, I want to be a role model”. I think you’re chosen to be a role model and in your space and your success, I think it naturally means you’ve become one. Do you feel that? Do you feel the need to inspire others? Do you feel that, do you take that role model status quite seriously?

Saul: 07:43
It wasn’t something that I set out to do, but I also realised that particularly from my own experiences, I always tell an account of like when I was young, and I’d go to the theatre and feel like people were almost judging me for not dressing correctly for the context. And I think my work serves a purpose to inspire people just to be who they want to be. And that’s always something that, I think movement in itself embodies and represents liberation. And for me that that’s always something I’ve set out to do is create a sense of freedom and liberation for my work. So, I really hope it does inspire the younger people just to be themself and to embrace who they are.

Brenda: 08:28
Because you used to go to the theatre in sportswear and tracksuits. Were people snobby about it?

Saul: 08:32
Oh, most definitely. And I kind of didn’t feel like I belonged there. So, I think that’s also, it’s also a point to challenge preconceived ideas, particularly around the people who wear sportswear, because I guess I was also judged in that way. So… yeah.

Brenda: 08:53
Your success was like two fingers up to establishment in some sense, wasn’t it?

Saul: 08:56
Partially, yeah.

Brenda: 09:00
I know the other thing that’s important to you and has inspired your creations to a degree is your heritage. Tell us about your cultural heritage and what part that plays in the way that you create and think.

Saul: 09:12
So that was quite interesting. I mean, my mum is born in Barbados, but to Guyanese parents and on my dad’s side, I’m Mauritian and English. But last season I foccussed more on my Guyanese upbringing, and that was also looking at these kind of folklores that were told in the home. So, I thought a lot about spirituality. My mum would always say, don’t burn a red candle because you know, it evokes spirits or, don’t throw your hair in the toilet because the birds will peck at it. So, all of these kind of folklores in the home, I started to question what do they mean to me as a man growing up in London, particularly because I grew up quite far away from these cultures.

But I have the idea of them based on what I know in London. So, last season I started to look at, you know, what does this mean to a young man who grows up in London, particularly one that wears sportswear? And I think what was exciting, I showed that from a barber shop, which a lot of my interactions in my culture were in the barber shop, you heard the music; you have the food and just the vibrant energy of it. I thought that was the best way to communicate that to my audience.

Brenda: 10:31
What you said that just reminded me, I was cutting my 92 year old mother’s hair the other day, and I took the extra hair off the brush and threw it the toilet, and I dare not tell her because she’s going to go mad. So, it just reminded me.

Saul: 10:43
Throwing it in the toilet is better than in the bin. My mum. (Brenda: Yeah) She said the bin was where birds would peck at your hair.

Brenda: 10:50
Or if it gets burnt it’s like you’re burning their spirit. Now Avis, you’re hearing this young talent. And how much of what Saul said about his career resonates with you?

Avis: 11:03
It actually resonates quite a lot because hearing what he was saying about performance and going to the theatre, obviously I started from a completely different point of view in regards to the way that I studied and doing an apprenticeship. So, we’re talking about early seventies when I was doing this. But the thing about is when I was younger, one of the things that I always did was dance as well. And my daughter actually went to a performing arts school, arts education school, so going to places like Sadler’s Wells and Royal ballet, we also stuck out like a sore thumb, but that was being Black, not just because of what we were actually wearing. I certainly know when my daughter was at school what she went through in regards to the fact of only being… you know, one of two Black girls that were in in the class and the comments and, and everything else.

And so, I think that within regards to my journey to get here and what it’s made me, who I am. You talked Saul about your family. And I know without my parents, I couldn’t have done this. Everything I’ve achieved today is because of them. And I started by doing an apprenticeship with a company called Susan Small, a couture house that was in the West End. And this couture house made clothes for the females of the royal family. And up until now, we still are trying to work out how my mother, coming over in the 1950s, could take herself into the West End, find this couture house and convince them to take on a 17 year old daughter as an apprentice as well as allowing her to do day release at a college as well, you know going to London College of fashion, but the whole basis of that was life changing.

But the mantra from both her and my father was you start at the top and you stay there and 50 years on that’s exactly where it is because everything I do is at a really high level because I think it’s important and I think it’s important for me as a Black woman. And I think it’s important because of the ones that are coming behind and what you’ve achieved is extraordinary. And I look at what our young Black designers are doing and the tenacity and the difference and the change that they are making to the industry, the level of individuality. And with what you’re saying, you know, we’re talking about studying and continuous learning, research, building your confidence and also having a vision. And somewhere along the line, having a business plan.

But we won’t bother discussing that in detail. And also, belief and having a second strand as well because in business it’s not easy to just stay on the one path. It’s, and obviously doing something within what you do. So even though I have the consultancy, erm, couture, I just love in fact, it’s become virtually like my therapy so the reason why I’m here is because, as Brenda mentioned, making a wedding dress for a client and the interesting thing and again, it’s down to the way that I was taught, and my apprenticeship was that we did one fitting of the toil. So that’s obviously the mock-up. And yesterday we did the fitting of the final piece. I have nothing to do on it except hand sewing. And this is a corseted bodice on a young lady that I’ve only met once. I know her mother very well. And, you know, Brenda mentioned the dress, mentioned Oprah Winfrey, and that was the Victoria Beckham dress. And that dress was made purely from measurements.

Brenda: 15:35
Wow. Weren’t you terrified?

Saul: 15:39
Wow.

Avis: 15:44
Well, yes. But the thing about it is this is back to, you know, the confidence and understanding your, understanding your client. So, I’m looking at every detail on the client, you know, and the customer themselves. So, the fact that it was a Victoria Beckham dress that obviously on the model would have been a size eight, ten. Right. And to grade it up to, you know, a different size purely from measurements, it’s also known how to construct the garment as well, knowing where the pressure points are. But also, I’d met Oprah on a couple of occasions anyway. And anybody I meet, I can visualise their entire body. And then looking at what she looked like in images and pictures and stuff like that. That’s why I was able to do it.

Brenda: 16:46
Did you find her inspiring? I’m almost getting gossipy now, but did you find her inspiring to meet and to work with?

Avis: 16:54
Well, when I think when I met her, it was at a concert at, in South Africa. I was invited, as a guest of Nelson Mandela. Here we go, name dropping.

Brenda: 17:04
As you do.

Avis: 17:05
(Laughs) via work that I’ve been doing with women in the rural areas in South Africa because I honestly don’t have an ego. So, when I was actually invited by the people who had said to me, oh, Madiba has invited you as his guest, you know when something just goes in your head and you think, no, no, no, no, no, that can’t even be correct. And you know how you sometimes think about I know what I would say if I was ever to meet Nelson Mandela or so-and-so and whatever. (Brenda: Yeah) Yeah, right, whatever. First of all, to be able to see him land in his helicopter, I was just beyond because I didn’t know the lady that I worked with, that her family had helped pay the legal fees for when he was in prison. She never told me any of this. So, it wasn’t until the event itself and I realised where we were sitting, which was behind Madiba. (Brenda: Wow)

That I then realised the enormity of it all. And then when she introduced me to him, when he said, “Oh, is this the young lady that you were telling me about?” I couldn’t remember, my name, I couldn’t remember what I did, absolutely nothing. So, after all of this practise and, you would have thought, you know, it’s different meeting members of the royal family at the age of 17 and you know, meeting Princess Margaret at the door of the couture house and taking her up in the lift. That’s one thing. So, you would have thought I’d kind of nailed this. No, absolutely not.

Brenda: 19:04
I can remember that when I met Muhammad Ali, I lost my tongue completely. Saul, have you ever had any moments like that with your clients? Who have you particularly enjoyed working with?

Saul: 19:05
Well, no, not necessarily my clients, but I have that a lot with well, my show team. I love my show team that I’ve acquired over the seasons. Some of them I would have known about when I was like a lot younger, like at school. So then to have the opportunity to work with them, like a good example is Elgar Johnson. I’m so inspired by him, but I actually work with him and for me that so it’s like, well, whoa!

Meeting Lulu Kennedy from Fashion East is just all the people I’ve met along the way. It’s, it’s just shocking to me to think I ever, I was, I’ve ever got to the stage where I’m actually under them or working with them. Or Ewen Spencer, who’s just shot my look back. I looked at a lot of his images in school and then not to mention Kate Middleton, most recently, that was quite, you know, I can totally relate to that moment, Avis, of, you know. I mean everything you’re gonna say and then when you finally meet them, you don’t know what to say. So, yeah, I mean, I’m constantly shocked, by the different people I met, like Riccardo Tisci, The Woolmark prize, the list is endless for me. And, you know, I’m just…

Brenda: 20:33
Are you mindful though, I must ask you, because if you look at the Woolmark Prize as one of your, many accolades, it is renowned for changing the lives of some really big names in the international fashion. Are you waiting for them at you? Are you aware of the enormity of it and does it impact you in terms of when you’re creating, you think, oh, my God, the pressures on?
How do you take all of that?

Saul: 20:55
No, I think it goes back to the grounding, like, I am so proud of what I’m achieving, but I have greater goals that I’m still not, I still haven’t achieved. So, it’s always a humbling reminder that, you know, of what I’m striving for. I’m so happy with everything that’s going on, but I never take my eye off of what it is that I want to achieve. And I think for me, the ultimate sense of achievement will be the day that I can, you know, lift up other people and, you know, help them. I think that’s, that’s really deep down my passion, you know, it’s like I’m so happy. And these are like moments that we, we celebrate, and we enjoy, but they just give me the momentum to just keep moving forward.

Brenda: 21:49
And in what way? In your head, what is your vision and in what way would you like to support others?

Saul: 21:54
I mean, I’d love to you know, have a kind of bursary to help someone go to college because I got a scholarship to study at Royal College of Art. And if I hadn’t got that, I wouldn’t have been able to go. So, I think, you know, it’s always in my mind, subconsciously, that was, I’m really happy of what I’m achieving. I really would love to kind of one day help other people.

Brenda: 22:22
Now Avis, you do help other people. You do a lot of mentoring, and you work with social entrepreneurs. Has that always been important to you, too?

Avis: 22:30
Yeah, absolutely. Because I know that for me, there wasn’t an Avis to talk me through the industry or give me an idea of what it’s like and you know, especially again, I bring up the fact of being a Black woman and something happened a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine that I’m staying with. She called me and said, some friends of hers, their daughters are interested in fashion. These girls are seven years old. So, she said, oh, they’d like you to come and speak to them. I repeat, they’re seven years old.

I wrote them a little bit to say, you know, tell me what your interests are and whatever. And one of them sent me a voicemail and the voicemail went through exactly the kind of things she liked, colours and the styles that she liked, she likes something nipped in at the waist. At that point, I practically keeled over, and we cut to the end where her mother said to her,” and would you like to tell Miss Avis what you’d like to do, something else about yourself’ So she said,” Well, I think I want to sing, but obviously I need really, really nice clothes, which is why I want to learn about fashion. And the second thing I am is, that I’m, I believe I’m a role model and I know I already influence other children”. I’m thinking 7 years old!

So, when I hear you Saul saying that this is what you want to do. You probably don’t realise it, but you’re actually already doing it. Because people look at you and know I can do this, and I certainly know for me in my career I’m always knocked sideways when I hear back from students or people that I’ve mentored or you know, one of the artisans, when my daughter and I were in India, I called her to say that we were in in Rajasthan, and she was actually in a different part of India. And her PA answered. She now has a shop in Dallas. (Brenda: Wow) and four franchises of her business in India. So, when you do something like that or you may meet a young lady at a conference or something, and she says, “My mother asked me to come and speak to you.” And she comes from Rwanda, and she talks about how when you went to Rwanda, you encouraged my mother to start a business and gave her ideas of what to do and everything.

And here is her daughter. And together with her mother, they now have this business, which is established. And so, when I see those things, we do this naturally, and I think it’s part and parcel of who we are. I think we have to keep on giving. I don’t think that we can ever get wrapped up in whether it’s our accolades or any of the great things that happen to us. Whether it’s, you know, making an outfit for somebody for the Tony Awards or the Royal wedding or whatever things I happen to be doing. Because I think looking at the next generation is important and especially looking at our people as, as, as people of colour, as Black people, because all of this is omitted from our fashion curriculums, and you know that, Saul. So, so which robs all of us. (Saul: Yeah, yeah) Robs all of us and also stumps creativity as well. So, for me, that passing on and for people to be able to see us and we have Brenda interviewing us and even though she never says anything. But the thing about this is how many young ladies has she influenced to when they see her on TV and think, you know, well, this is what I want to do.

Saul: 27:01
Yeah. Yeah.

Brenda: 27:04
They do actually come and tell me. So, I am alright. But you know, it’s a testament what you’re saying about you saying you can’t be what you can’t see. But what I really would love you to share with us Avis because I’m sure it will interest Saul as well is, the whole putting our experience in the whole historical context of fashion, the way you feel that we’ve been omitted and how you’d like the curriculum, particularly in fashion colleges to be changed to reflect that.

Avis: 27:09
You know, I just simply call it an omission of history because, you know, this is never included. And honestly, if this discussion was 24 hours a day for the next year, it would never be able to fill in the amount of bits that are missing in regards to historical context. And we, you know, as I said before, it robs our designers, it robs all designers. It doesn’t matter what colour they are. You cannot sit there and in honesty and say that you are doing a whole project on denim without working backwards and you cannot possibly start from sharecroppers and Levi’s as if that, as if it wasn’t slavery before that. When the people that would have done the weaving and the dying would have been Black people.

And so, you know, that whole omission of that, on an item and a piece of fabric that has been continuous generation after generation after generation. And there is historical fact that shows back in the day you know, Africans that were actually wearing this particular fabric. The way it’s, if you look at the way that the weave has actually been done and you even look at old pictures of slaves as well, and you can see exactly the same, exactly the same weave.

Now, I don’t think that the slave masters suddenly rushed out to Neiman Marcus and went and bought their clothes. So, I think it was a possibility, in fact, an absolute probability that the slaves made their own clothes. And the reason why that seems pretty obvious is because you had slaves that were actually what we would call Couturiere now that created, virtually clothing ranges that their slave masters would sell because this was an extra way of making income.
So, once they realised that slaves would sew, that was it. And this is something that’s been passed down in in generations

Saul: 29:43
That’s interesting because sewing is in my, sewing was in my mum’s family, like it was passed down to her as well.

Avis: 29:53
Yes, of course, because it’s always been there.

Brenda: 29:54
We had to learn to crochet, we had to learn to sew, we had to learn to darn our socks even. So, I think it’s part of our DNA, really.

Avis: 30:05
It is part of our DNA. You ask anybody from the Caribbean what their grandfather did, and I bet you they were tailors and women of that kind of era, you know, if we’re talking about kind of, the time of the Windrush era, the majority of them, well I would have said, all of them would have sewn because where they come from, you couldn’t run to Selfridges to go and get an outfit to start with. And then when you think of the way the men dressed, when you looked at the way they came off of the boat as well, you’re talking about they’re in suits, ties. That came from when you had the Great Migration from the north to the south, when the slaves were supposedly free and they no longer wanted to wear denim, which was called slave clothes.

When you see, usually see a lynching, a slave is usually in dungarees which are denim. So having to shed those slave clothes which they class as denim, which was denim. And then during that great migration in suits, and then you think of how that is passed down, which is why our fathers, my father certainly was a tailor and our mothers included dressmaking and whatever they did, my mother was a teacher. So, you have always this passing down. And so, when you kind of think to yourself about that, you danced as well as this creativity in regards to your fabrics and the movement, you just need to look at whether it’s you’re looking at Haiti or whether you’re looking at Brazil, the way the dance is done, using the big skirts and the fabric.

And you’re talking about Mauritius, exactly the same thing when you look at the culture of Mauritius. Yeah, with exactly the big skirts that are used in movement. So, somebody may think that this has just come from you, and you’ve only learnt this while you’re doing your, your MA at Royal College of Art or whether it was when you were at CSM.
But it’s always been there. There can, there’s no coincidence in that.

Brenda: 32:32
I mean, it’s so inspiring to me to be sitting here, somebody who worked on the Clothes Show for so many years and has always been celebrating designers to sit here with somebody who, you know, whose career spans that 40 years and somebody now who’s seen as one of the most exciting things. And in between that we have the more Syd Wills and Ozwald Boateng and the Virgil Abloh and the amazing work that Vogue has done.

So, Saul, I’ll start with you first. I mean, Naomi Campbell is becoming increasingly vocal more and more, saying, you know, we’ve come a long way, but there’s still much more to do. But what’s your feeling on the whole idea of diversity and inclusion in fashion? So, do you think we’re getting there?

Saul: 33:09
I, I think that the work is never over. You know, during the Black Lives Matter times I was really upset and actually I was crying because it just felt so heavy. What happened in the US it was so unfortunate, but it really triggered a worldwide kind of reflection of what is going on and it felt so heavy and a lot of my, my kind of contemporaries, other Black designers, we came together and, you know, we spoke a lot because everybody was feeling that heaviness and so I think, whilst it’s positive, how, I have definitely noticed over the past two years, there’s been a kind of shift to, to include more people into fashion.

I think the work has to go all the way back to education because even letting young people, particularly young Black people, know that, you know, going to CSM is a possibility for them or you know, they’re not really aware of what’s possible because it’s not even going that far back into education. So, I think on the content of surface level, it’s really good what’s happening because it’s positive.

And I think, you know, even more visibility of Black bodies in fashion. It’s a real positive thing because it allows younger people to see themselves. And I think that the work like it’s years and years of unwinding that needs to be done. So, it’s really good that that we’ve made a positive step into change. But I think it’s, it’s just got to keep going and, you know, and it’s just got to keep, keep going.

Brenda: 35:00
And what’s your view, Avis, as a seasoned practitioner? You observed this over decades. What do you think should be priority?

Avis: 35:08
I think the industry has changed because it had to and I think, you know, even before George Floyd. I think the difference with George Floyd is that your generation has said enough. And my generation of my age has also said, you know what, I don’t have the tolerance anymore. (Saul: Yeah), and also the onset of being of social media is that nobody’s going to wait to be recognised as a designer and or just think to themselves, I can’t do this.

They’re going to at least try. And the one thing about going on social media, Instagram and whatever, there is that million in one chance that you will be noticed, but at least you’re doing something. And I think that the industry hasn’t really got a choice. And when it comes to the curriculums, whether they like it or not, they’re going to have to include all the kinds of things I say, whether they want to or not.

So, if diversity, inclusion and whatever else they want to call it. Sorry, I’m rolling my eyes at this moment, you, you want to do it in a piecemeal kind of fashion. There’s not only me going to say Oh, hell no, you need to be included. And I’m exceptionally vocal because I have no fear at this age. What exactly are you going to do to me, really? You know, apart from the fact that I have a sister that’s a judge, so I’ll sue. I’m really not going to, I could not possibly continue my career without being vocal about these things, about the fact that there has always been Black couturiers, always, always and we’re talking about from Hollywood times as well.

And, you know, without including, you know, people like Miles Davis, it wasn’t just music, it was his whole sense of style, but Black men were doing that anyway. And this again is coming from, out of slavery. And you think about your own upbringing in regards to the way that we have to dress. When we go to round to see our parents looking like, without everything fixed up and in place. And in my case, if I’m taking my mum to church, she used to have all those hats just ready. “You’ll have this hat on and you’re praying. Your friends are gonna see you.” So, I think that kind of, you know, the change that is coming now, this is a juggernaut coming down the hill and it is not going to be stopped.

So, when you see a Saul Nash, you know, people just, our young people are just not going to put up with it. They’ll demonstrate for so many different things because their voices need to be heard. And especially when you understand your history, your voice is definitely going to be heard because you’re not going to go back. And people like myself and I’m not the only one, have laid these foundations. And we’ve already put up with most of the nonsense. And it’s, you know, the fact that we’re here, (Saul: Yeah) having this conversation and, you know, the fact that we have an independent Brenda, that’s allowing us to have this conversation on a platform like this is huge.

Well, I think it’s hugely important that we do get an opportunity to celebrate Black creatives, which is why I wanted to do it, which is why I called it Kiss My Black Side, because I think there’s an attitude and a confidence now that we have, that. Like you said, it’s not going backwards and you’re just so amazing people, who doesn’t want to know about you? who doesn’t know about you? Before we do go, because we are going to run out of time. I hate that. All of us have been influenced. We mentioned Oprah. If I didn’t see the Oprahs, the Trevor McDonalds and the Moira Stewarts, I wouldn’t have known it was possible for me. So, I just wondered Saul, who inspired. If you were to pass on the baton backwards or forwards, who would you say has been a great inspiration for you that you’d like the audience to hear about?

Saul: 39:41
There’s been many. And if we talk about through history, there are so many. But this person, I’ve seen their journey quite close up. So, I would say, Bianca Saunders, because I’ve seen this person, I guess, out in the world and behind the scenes. And she really inspired me to push my business forward and to get to the point I’m at today. So, I would definitely say Bianca.

Brenda: 40:09
Is there anything specific about the way she works or creates that inspires you?

Saul: 40:14
I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s so much to discuss about her creativity and just her vision as the designer, but it’s just the values that I kind of learnt from her, you know, being tenacious, being savvy, you know, that don’t let the door close, just keep knocking on it. And I think just seeing somebody like that for me was, was essential, particularly at the stage of starting my career.

Brenda: 40:45
I want to cheat a little but the fact that you do menswear, is there a particular male that you are inspired by his look or his style?

Saul: 40:53
There’s quite a few of them. I grew up in London, so a lot of the men kind of when I was younger, I used to watch them TV. A lot of them would be like Grime M.Cs , so like Dizzee Rascal or I really love how they put sportswear together. So, when I was young, I’d see a lot of them on Channel U. Yeah, that’s what it was called back then. So, they were a lot of my kind of they shaped the way I dressed, growing up.

Brenda: 41:23
And you Avis, who would you pass your baton to?

Avis: 41:26
I would pass my baton to, to any emerging designer And I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve got anything to pass on to Saul Nash.

Saul: 41:40
I’ve learnt so much and…

Avis: 41:46
But I think if I was looking backwards, my influence really would be my mother first, sheer Caribbean elegance and style. But Ann Lowe, born in 1898, an African American fashion designer who made dresses for the High Society of the US and notably Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress and was invited to show in the haute couture shows in Paris by Christian Dior. Certainly not mentioned anywhere. And I think for somebody of that ilk to have come so far is quite incredible and she wasn’t the only one. So, I think women of that era just have so much influence on me. And as I said, my mother.

Brenda: 42:45
This has been a truly dreamy conversation for me. Does this come in black? Well, we know excellence certainly does. I want to say a huge thank you to both of you for joining me for this programme. And we have a specially commissioned spoken word contribution to fashion to end the programme by a flow poet. The title of the poem is Japito, and it’s performed by a Slow Vortex Poet, Mr. I Am Jones. Enjoy everyone and do join us again for the next episode of Kiss My Black Side. Thank you.