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Photography by Josh Hight
For Paapa Essiedu, has introduction to fashion came as early and intimate as his kitchen table in north-east London where his mother, a designer and fashion and design teacher, would make clothes. “From when I was little, our kitchen – which wasn’t a big kitchen, we didn’t live in a big house – was a huge table, which she’d use for pattern cutting and, like, an industrial sewing machine. It was basically 80 per cent clothes-making equipment and 20 per cent a microwave,” he emphasizes. “So, it’s been a presence in my life from when I was young.”
Photography by Josh Hight
“I wouldn’t say I’m a provocateur or anything like that. I actually don’t like the idea of people even looking at me”
“I wouldn’t say I’m a provocateur or anything like that. I actually don’t like the idea of people even looking at me. It’s obviously counter to my actual job, [but] I really hate it.”
He is driven to push the limits of expectations though, across all elements of his work. “I do like the idea of stretching people’s paradigms of what’s possible: for men, for Black men, for people of a certain class structure. You know? I feel like we’re living in a time when we can really strive to stamp our individuality on the moment by what we do, by our actions. And I feel that can happen with the image you project as well… I want to look like what I want to look like, and I should be allowed to do that.”
