Designer 5- Kya Brooks Harris

A fashion student (Kya) approached me and asked if I would photograph her collection for her. Once I had seen her collection I decided to use the photos for my own FMP as her designs were extremely relevant to my project.


Concept: "In this project I looked into the homeless situation we face in Britain. The number of people living on the streets is rising every year. I looked into how the homeless live and how they're perceived. When I researched the conditions they have to endure every night, the words unpleasant design and hostile architecture kept appearing. I looked into this subject and decided to choose it as my design starting point. Looking at what body parts are affected by the architecture, I started to design knowing that I wanted padded designs." - Kya Brooks Harris

Designer: Kya Harris

Title: Displacement

Model: Fiona Manneh

She also looked at the works of Lucy Orta and her designs for inspiration, our projects were very similar. 

Having looked at a number of different photographers work I was particularly drawn to the symmetry in Craig McDean's fashion photography. This is something I wanted to try and emulate within my work and I think I successfully managed to do this during this shoot as can be seen in the images below.

Other images from shoot:

There were a number of elements I needed to take into account when carrying out this shoot to ensure there was consistency throughout my work. For example:

• A low viewpoint
• Close/tight crops
• Symmetry throughout the composition
• Correct framing

I had learnt a lot from my previous shoots in terms of what worked and what didn't. All these factors were taken into account when shooting this final collection. 

The shoot was successful and Kya was really pleased with the outcome of the images. I chose to use a green background as I thought it would highlight the green embroidery detail on the garments. I tried to keep my concept recognisable through this shoot and focused on creating symmetrical compositions. 

There was no make up artist involved in this collection as Kya and I decided it would be best to have a natural look to emphasise the concept regarding homelessness.