Meet Aspire Norton, a fashion design graduate from Cardiff Metropolitan University. Aspire’s final collection is inspired by the increased awareness of mental health issues and aims to depict a young person’s battle with their mental health through colour. Her collection seeks to encourage greater self acceptance and lessen stigma. Read on to discover more on Aspire’s work.
What is the most valuable thing you have learnt at university?
I have learnt to be confident in my ethics and beliefs as a woman of colour, to uplift other designers and how to communicate my ideas to peers and industry. I have become part of a wider creative community who champions diversity and being yourself and have found wider inspiration. I Have learnt to be confident in my ethics and beliefs as a woman of colour, to uplift other designers and how to communicate my ideas to peers and industry. I have become part of a wider creative community who champions diversity and being yourself and have found wider inspiration within these groups.
Studying at university has taught me to be confident in my design ideas but to also question wider society as a critical thinker, why are things the way they are and what can I do about it, what do I have to offer the conversation. As a person of colour this has been an interesting journey in finding my voice as a designer and as a woman in an industry which is predominantly ran by males. I have been able to delve into my culture and celebrate it within my work and have been applauded for touching on issues which fashion can sometimes overlook, University has also given me the opportunity to discover my heritage and explore the Black British experience and how largely we have added to British culture from music, food and style I have been able to identify and get a sense of belonging within myself.
I have also discovered a love for creative direction creating several fashion films and photoshoots which were directed and edited by myself I was able to control my narrative and bring my ideas to life the link of film and photography to fashion has taught me how important a narrative and story is and how representation truly matters within the industry. My love for film is something I want to experiment with further after graduating and I hope it takes me down some strange and wonderful places, collaborating on film and photography has taught me a lot about other creative disciplines and the philosophies behind them.
Tell us about your current projects and work, what have you been working on?
As a young designer, I am aware of the increasing importance of mental health awareness especially amongst young people who are seeing a rise in mental health issues. As someone who has personally suffered with mental health, I find it greatly important to create awareness of how mental health is dealt with in our healthcare system and explore how society views individuals with mental health problems. A big part of my research has been looking into the adequacy of the help available to young people in this country, whilst also exploring my own and others symptoms of mental health and how these effect the creative process. As a creative, I place particular focus on the use of colour theory within design and its links to mental health, within my research and garments I use colour placement to represent key stages of mental health.
I used colours which widely represent certain emotions to the human psyche and played around with shape and texture to utilise the emotional effects of colour. Life can often be dull and numb to someone who suffers with mental health and colour is underestimated in its use to brighten someone’s day, through exploration of creativity and spirituality, I hope to offer and insight into the world of someone who is suffering from mental health, but also show the positives and small things which lighten someone’s suffering. I strive to show the strength that those who suffer from mental health embody. I think this an important issue to discuss as young creatives often suffer with mental health and it is important to show how creativity can be used as a type of therapy and escape from the mind, which it has always been for me. I will always want to advocate for the younger generation because they are our future and I believe that they will change many injustices that we face.
What form does your final project take?
To depict a young person’s battle with mental health, I have taken inspiration from colour theory which explores what each primary colour represents to the human psyche and what emotion it triggers when seen by the viewer. Within my portfolio this is a key theme the pages are colour coded off three colours; Red which represents angers, Blue which is sadness and numbness and Multicolour which is acceptance of what is going and taking the key steps to get better. This really evoked me creatively when doing my pages as I was working with these colours which represent the human emotions in which we go through. I knew that I wanted my garments to be bold to reflect the importance of colour and emotion on the human psyche so I played around with the placement of primary colours on the body reflecting the physical and emotional effects of mental health, creating a striking collection which hides a deeper meaning.
The colours take form on the garments in almost dream like shapes exploring the use of drugs to medicate and treat mental illness, I wanted the wearer to feel empowered when wearing the pieces and to feel seen by the viewer, the viewer should almost feel a sensory overload when looking at the garments as so much is going on this is done purposefully as it reflects the chaos of our minds. For my promotional shoot, I had to alter my initial plans and wore the outfits myself to adapt to the COVID-19 crisis, although this is something that I wasn’t keen on I felt the photos came out very personally authentic to my own struggle but strength in battle against my own mind, I felt creating a shoot at home was much more challenging because you have all the mundane objects which would not usually be found in an editorial shoot but somehow, I felt that this added to it.
How have you evolved as a young creative while studying / working?
I think I have grown a lot as a young creative, and found my voice as a woman of colour alongside my peers, which has been an interesting journey. I think my experience as a fashion student made me want to focus on creating awareness for mental health due to my own experiences at university, suffering with depression and anxiety and having to show work which is very personal. This made me more confident and unmoving in my convictions to design for a purpose and to design quite personally exploring my identity as a creative and how I see the world. I have also been able to work alongside Designers which I admire and who’s craft are exemplary especially technically and it has pushed me to work harder and to focus on my strengths and work at my weaknesses, fashion design is a stressful industry so completing my BA has taught me to look out for other creatives and uplift designers who have important things to say within their work.
I have been accepted into a creative community which is diverse and has allowed me to take inspiration from to shed light on political issues within marginalised communities. My BA experience has made me consider how important it is to be yourself and be authentic to yourself within design and to not focus too much on how you differ from your peers but to celebrate what makes you different, it has shaped my views on the world and how I navigate myself and a woman within it and how to network confidently with other creatives and to not minimise your achievements when in a space which makes you uncomfortable. Studying design has shown me that there are still bigoted people within the industry but there are also young and old creatives who push for a more diverse industry and the celebration of marginalised voices.
What are the messages and themes behind your project that you want people to take away? Do explore any topics like diversity, sustainability or politics in your work?
The key theme behind my project is raising awareness for mental health, but also empowering those who suffer with it to talk about their experience to get rid of the stigmas which still exist in society. I want young people to feel empowered to be as strange and wacky as possible without fear of persecution or disapproval from their peers. I feel this is what I embody as a designer and within my handwriting; an innate desire to be myself and to express myself. I believe that the younger generation will be offer the change that is needed in aspects of the environmental crisis, sexism, racism and all other injustices, from a young age young people are becoming increasingly more politically aware and active and want to evoke change within a society which they will grow up in!
I have seen this first hand in form of protests, creative content and online culture which young people use as an avenue to support activism and create change this is promising and therefore I believe as an industry we must invest and appeal to the younger generation to uplift them and empower their ideas which will push our society forwards. These are some of the key themes embedded within my work as well as spirituality which I feel many young people are turning to in these troubling times, my work will always show a boldness and feeling of identity and heritage which innately ties to the inspiration that young creatives give me, I want them to feel empowered and seen when viewing my work and feel a part of a community which celebrates diversity and intersectionality, acknowledges all people and expresses the need to be kind to yourself, to the world and others around you and I hope this is what people get a sense of when they view my work or meet me personally.
What’s an aspect of the fashion industry that you’re passionate about fixing or having a positive impact on?
I think one of the main issues in the fashion industry is diversity, only recently are we seeing prominent black designers taking rightful roles in high end designer brands. Often people of colour’s culture is stolen and reproduced in an un-authentic and disrespectful manner and the fashion industry and brands should be held accountable for this. There needs to be better education for how a designer impacts the world in which they design for and I believe this should be something which is taught in fashion studies, this would allow each individual designer to be more conscious when designing and allows individual people to be accountable. I think it’s positive to see that the industry has embraced the LGBTQ community and the BAME community in some respects but often this seems to be performance ally ship and real steps need to be taken to ensure equal opportunities within the work place and the design industry.
I think opportunities such as this one should be in place without traumatic events happening to trigger it, however I believe that as an industry we are starting to become more aware of the inequality and how it can be addressed with specific opportunities within design. For me as a woman of colour I have experienced micro aggression from peers within design and therefore I think it is key to educate our young designers to recognise that Racism is not only blatant but I can be subconscious and imbedded within the media that we consume. As a whole I feel that we need to take individual accountability of what we put out into the world as designers but we can also learn and educate along the way, we just need to be willing to have the difficult and uncomfortable conversations which will push us forward and create an industry which Is equal.
What is your plan for the future?
During my time at university I have learnt a vast amount of skills, I have developed my knowledge of starting a business and the help available to young creatives through the field module. I really enjoyed developing branding imagery and handwriting to create an authentic brand, I also found the module really developed my presentation and networking skills having to talk to other creatives and business leaders, and bouncing ideas off each other, this really emboldened my ideas and thoughts about business. I have also developed many practical skills during my time, improving on my pattern cutting skills and developing patterns from scratch, this helped my digital communication as I was able to understand how garments work and function. Through digital communication I have learnt many digital skills through use of adobe software which will be useful within the industry.
During my time at Cardiff Met, I have experimented with various aspects of design and discovered how vast the types of jobs are within the industry. I would like to try various aspects of the industry through interning, in the year following graduation I plan to travel abroad to do this as I wish to experience different fields of design and design philosophy. In the long term, I hope to work for a trend company, as I feel my strength lies within creating trend forecasts and developing key elements of social though into design. An example of this is WGSN, however many companies have in house trend sectors . As mentioned I have developed a love for film and creative direction and hope to work on that alongside interning and any roles which I take on within the industry as this is something which I am very passionate about.