Young woman wearing jeans and white top poses lying on the ground

graphic banner in red, white and blue reading Charlie Newman's model of the month

Portrait of Thai English model Olivia Graham

Model and entrepreneur, Lydia Graham. Image courtesy Models 1

LUX contributing editor and model at Models 1, Charlie Newman continues her online exclusive series, interviewing her peers about their creative pursuits, passions and politics

colour headshot of blond girl laughing with hand against face wearing multiple rings

Charlie Newman

THIS MONTH: At 16, Lydia Graham applied to an online modelling competition at the now defunct teen magazine, Sugar. She didn’t win but still got signed by Models 1. Now 22, she’s already shot for the likes of Burberry and Kenzo, signed a beauty and perfume contract with Yves Rocher and is set to launch her own brand, Oh Lydia, early next year. Charlie speaks to Lydia about the fashion industry, Victoria’s Secret and versatility.

Charlie Newman: You’re half British and half Thai – what was your upbringing like?
Lydia Graham: I was born in Bangkok, so I’m a Thai citizen, but I’m the furthest thing from being Thai because I don’t speak Thai and I don’t understand it either! I moved to Hertfordshire in England when I was two years old, then onto East Sussex and now I live in Whitechapel.

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Charlie Newman: From when you first started modelling, how do you think the industry has changed?
Lydia Graham: I guess it’s more diverse. I enjoy it better now because I have the choice of saying no, not that I necessarily need to, but for example I’m getting stronger at not letting people cut my hair whichever way they like on set. Still I’ve had the dodgiest haircuts in my time!

Charlie Newman: Are there still things you think could be improved in the industry?
Lydia Graham: For me, the modelling side of things has got so much better, including plus sized girls, shorter girls, it’s much more street cast nowadays. Where I would like to see the industry change is with payment. Even though I get paid quite well as a model, a lot of my friends are stylists or photographers or artists and they work so hard yet don’t get paid. Sometimes I feel bad because I know how much I’m getting whilst I know half of the people on set are doing it for free. I think if everyone got paid then it would just set the standard. It would also prevent the snobbery between commercial and editorial jobs within the industry. The cheaper the brand the higher they pay, whilst the high end brands believe that whoever shoots for them should feel privileged, hence why the pay is so little. But then again, you can’t put the commercial jobs in your portfolio, it’s the editorial shoots that the clients want to see. At the end of the day, it should never be acceptable to work for free, it should all be fair.

Young woman wearing jeans and white top poses lying on the ground

Image courtesy Models 1

Charlie Newman: You’ve been really smart with changing your ‘look’ over the years which I think elongates your career and makes you more versatile. What’s been your favourite look so far?
Lydia Graham: Probably the mullet but I just couldn’t style it myself and I think my hair was too thick for it, I just ended up looking like Dot Cotton! My hairdresser’s amazing but my hair just wasn’t quite right for it. At the moment I’d like my hair to be longer but with a short fringe or maybe go peroxide blonde one day and then get a pixie cut after. But obviously I haven’t spoken to Models 1 about it yet!

Charlie Newman: Within a world where the beauty standard is so narrow, have you found your uniqueness to be an advantage or disadvantage?
Lydia Graham: A bit of both. Even though I’m not a full Asian, sometimes I’m used as the token Asian, which I’m happy to represent so in that example it’s been good. But other times I get backhanded compliments like “Oh you just look so normal, the clothes fit you so good, normally we have to pin them to other models” or “You just look like anyone walking down the street”, I’m like cheers for that! If I wasn’t in the right headspace that could have a bad effect on me, but I obviously don’t give a shit.

Read more: New luxury hotel Chais Monnet opens near Bordeaux

Charlie Newman: You’ve got effortless style. If money was no object, who would you choose to wear?
Lydia Graham: I used to really love Gucci but now I just think the designs are too mad. I don’t really have a favourite brand right now, but I love the stylist Mimi Cuttrell, she nails every outfit! She doesn’t just put the same look on all her girls, she styles them all individually, my favourite being Bella Hadid, she always looks sick!

Charlie Newman: What’s been your favourite job thus far?
Lydia Graham: My favourite would have to be for the shoe brand Call it Spring that I shot with my boyfriend Josh. It’s not particularly high fashion but they were just amazing trips. The team were so cool, we would have the best time in the evenings all together. We’ve been to Palm Springs, Lisbon and Berlin – it was the whole experience! My favourite high fashion shoot would have to be with Burberry. I knew everyone on set, the shoot for me is more about the team and the experience than the images that come out of it. In other words, didn’t care about either of those jobs running overtime basically, I didn’t want to rap at 5 like I normally do!

Burberry campaign starring model Lydia Graham

Lydia for Burberry. Instagram: @ohlydiagraham

Charlie Newman: You’re currently embarking on creating your own brand called Oh Lydia. Please tell us more about it.
Lydia Graham: It first started because I was getting a bit depressed. I was either working too hard or not enough and was really struggling with the imbalance of my life. If I’m not busy then I’ve got the time for my mind to wander. I was feeling a bit lost but Josh, bless him, was always encouraging me to do more, saying that I had so much more to offer than just modelling. So I thought fuck it, why not run my own business, even if it doesn’t make a profit I want to give it a go.

Underwear is such a big thing for me, I love nothing more than wearing something sexy but comfy – I’m a big advocate for comfort! I remember when Josh and I first started dating and I’d go to Agent Provocateur and buy a nice set of underwear and I’ve only worn it once! Now I see it in the drawer and try it on but take it off immediately because it’s just not me. Then I thought, why can’t I have date night underwear but still be able to wear a sanitary towel? I’m not calling myself a designer, so I’ve decided to just stick with pants and tank tops for now before I get the experience to do more. I’m using a lot of small businesses to help me get to where I want to be because at the end of the day, I’m only a little person in this world! Ultimately, Oh Lydia came about through a mixture of boredom and entrepreneurial spirit. Most importantly it makes me feel happier!

Read more: Artist Maryam Eisler on East London’s creative characters

Charlie Newman: What sort of image are you hoping for?
Lydia Graham: The comfort of M&S underwear but in a colourful, 90s aesthetic although I’m making the colours more modern, it’s not just a vintage remake.

Charlie Newman: You’re clearly very interested in underwear and as the Victoria’s Secret show came out only last weekend, I just wondered what your attitude was to their whole brand and their values?
Lydia Graham: I don’t really rate them as a brand. All the girls look beautiful but that doesn’t mean I want to actually go out and buy the clothes. I can appreciate that Candice Swanepoel is so fit, but it all just seems so far out of my reach. I don’t even think ‘Oh I could never look like that’, my brain just completely switches off. But of course I understand it really opens up the girls career and changes their lives. I always hear the girls refer to VS as their ‘family’ but within fashion I just don’t think that exists because however much of a relationship you have with a client, they’ll always need new girls, you’re only ever just a number. I would always call my agency Models 1 my family though, as they’ve been there right from the beginning.

Charlie Newman: Who would be your role model of the month?
Lydia Graham: It would have to be my little 20 year old sister. She’s a carer and earns barely anything considering she works her fucking arse off. She’s such a grafter, always working extra shifts. If she can do it then we all can do it!

Follow Lydia Graham on Instagram: @ohlydiagraham

 

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Reading time: 7 min
Burberry opens new London location and launches photograph exhibition

This weekend at London Fashion Week, Burberry opened the doors to Old Sessions House, the brand’s new London home, coinciding with the launch of their latest collection and a major photographic exhibition, ‘Here We Are’ curated by Burberry’s President and Chief Creative Officer, Christopher Bailey. With work from over 30 photographers displayed over three floors, the exhibition celebrates the art of social portraiture and British spirit. LUX Digital Editor Millie Walton speaks to co-curator Lucy Moore, director of Claire de Rouen Books about the works on display and the significance of space.

Millie Walton: Why hold the exhibition now? Is the timing significant?
Lucy Moore: At a time when we all create and consume images at the fastest rate in human history, I think the works in this exhibition, mostly made in the pre-digital age, have a particular power and resonance. It’s also an interesting moment to think about ‘British-ness’ and what it might mean. I hope the exhibition offers up many possible answers.

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MW: The exhibition aims to explore the British way of life and character through photography. What time span does it cover and how important was the geographic location of the photographs to you as a curator?
LM: The earliest work is from circa 1935 and is by Bill Brandt. The historical aspect of the exhibition runs up to about the mid-1980s, with work by Tom Wood, Jo Spence and Homer Sykes, for example. There are also two presentations by contemporary photographers Alasdair McLellan and Gosha Rubchinskiy. McLellan is showing an extensive series of works and he has also shot the campaign for Burberry’s September collections. Rubchinskiy was commissioned especially by Burberry to create work for this exhibition.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee, London, England, 1977. Peter Marlow. Courtesy of Magnum Photos.

Belfast. 2005. Alasdair McLellan

MW: Do you think that the photographs lean towards a certain atmosphere or mood? How would you describe that feeling?
LM: There are quite a few moods, in my mind: bold, energetic, carefree, aspirational, creative, tender, committed, industrious.

Read next: The idyllic British country retreat in a historic manor house

MW: Did you make any intriguing or surprising discoveries when you were preparing the exhibition?
LM: I was very fortunate to have been able to view the archive of work by Shirley Baker, now looked after by her daughter Nan. It’s incredible and much of it unseen. Ken Russell’s beautiful film ‘A House in Bayswater’ was a completely new discovery, as was his series of photographs of the military horse guards at Whitehall taken in 1957. The guards were the subject of a commission called Ceremony for Arena HOMME+ magazine by Alasdair McLellan, almost exactly 50 years later, and I’m very honoured that we are showing it in ‘Here We Are’.

Millie Walton: The re-opening of the Old Sessions House ties in with the opening of the exhibition. How do the photographs and spaces interact?
Lucy Moore: In some cases there is a very strong connection – for example in the room which contains photographs that explore Britons’ relationship with weather. This has a skylight in the ceiling through which you can see, and hear, the real weather outside. Many of the rooms in the building would not have been originally intended for public visitors. They have a sense of domesticity because of this, and we have reflected this in the approach to the exhibition hang.

MW: Is there a photograph or series of photographs in the collection that you feel particularly connected to? And if so, why?
LM: There are 3 very small, but very important, photographs by the late Jo Spence in ‘Here We Are’. Her concerns were primarily sociological, historical and educational. She was a deeply intelligent, courageous artist and her work has long inspired me.

Here We Are’ runs until 1 October at Old Sessions House, Clerkenwell, London. burberry.com

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Reading time: 5 min
Model of the month

Model and photographer, Darwin Gray. Image by Robert Binda

Unique design title model of the month

Sydney Lima

LUX contributing editor and Storm model, Sydney Lima continues her online exclusive series, interviewing her peers about modelling life and business.

THIS MONTH: Soon after 20-year-old Darwin Gray signed to London’s Storm Models he was spotlighted as the one to watch in the fashion world, walking catwalks for the likes of  Burberry, Tom Ford, Louis Vuitton and Vivienne Westwood, shooting campaigns for Jack Wills and editorials for Harpers Bazaar and eventually singing to agencies globally from Tokyo to New York. Now Darwin is developing his skills as a photographer, working on a portrait series whilst he is based in Korea.

Sydney Lima: How did you first get into modelling?
Darwin Gray: I was scouted at my cousins wedding by his best man, it was all a weird situation, he came up to me and said I should think about modelling, I just thought he’d been at the bar a bit too long! Then I met Storm a few weeks later and the rest is history.

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SL: What has been your favourite team to work with to date?
DG:My favourite team to date would probably be the Jack Wills team. I was part of two of their campaign shoots, both of which were just as fun as the other. Not at one point did it feel like work, the team were all really nice and good fun- I also met my girlfriend while shooting it so that’s a plus!

Image by Robert Binda

SL: What inspired you to first start taking photos?
DG: I had been modelling a few years before it became something I concentrated on. I was always taking lots of photos and I’ve loved looking back at them because each photo has a little memory it takes you back to.

SL: What’s your favourite subject to take photos off?
DG: My favourite subject would be my girlfriend Lottie, every day I’ll take photos of her either on my phone or camera. I probably have over 10,000 photos of her…

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”25″ gal_title=”Darwin Gray”]

Above: A selection of Darwin’s photographs. Courtesy of Darwin Gray

SL: When did you get your first camera?
DG: I got my first camera about 3 years ago. I bought it in Tokyo as the prices were better. It was a Canon EOS Kiss X7.

Read next: Mayfair’s legendary member’s club, Annabel’s reopening

Sydney Lima: Do you find you learn a lot through working with other photographers?
Darwin Gray: I’m always watching what other photographers do, I find it interesting how people all work so differently. I’m always asking questions. I feel lucky to have the opportunity to learn from within the industry.

SL: Who’s your favourite photographer?
DG: Tom Mitchell is one of my favourite photographers because his work is so clean and he portrays natural beauty in a subtle way.

SL: Do you have any projects planned for the year?
DG: I’m working on a few things, but right now I’m concentrating on a documentary photo series whilst I’m in Korea.

instagram.com/darwingray

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Reading time: 2 min

London Fashion Week is an increasingly unmissable item on the global style calendar. With the help of Tom Ford and friends, DARIUS SANAI celebrates its unstoppable rise

For decades, it was a curious anomaly. London, the creative hub of the globe, the capital of the country that gave the world Alexander McQueen, Dizzee Rascal, The Clash, Damien Hirst, Jonathan Ive, Michael Caine, Vivienne Westwood, Anna Wintour, The Beatles, Corinne Day and Jessie J, had no fashion industry to speak of.

There were plenty of brilliant designers – who, like McQueen, were snapped up by big houses from Paris or Milan or New York, because that’s where the industry and the money was, and where the shows were. London was somewhere you went when the fashion shows were over.

Wander through the shows and the parties at London Fashion Week this February and you would be forgiven for wondering if London, not Paris or Milan, is now the engine of the global fashion industry. The shows – scattered around the centre of a city so bursting with creativity that Fashion Week is always just one of lots of things going on simultaneously – have an energy, panache and confidence that looks sharply to the future. Parties are not just attended by the requisite beautiful, glamorous and wealthy, and the nowmandatory celebs (from A to G list, depending on the party) but by aneverrotating phalanx of creative types who make their own fashion, sometimes literally. London has the buzz: Paris, immediately afterwards last September, felt a little sedate by comparison.

The numbers don’t lie and despite the tide of brands showing in London, Paris and Milan are still the fashion industry powerhouses: London is still dwarfed in terms of its commercial clout. But for creative buzz allied with a rising commercial significance, London, once ignored, is now a destination.

What catalysed the change? Alexandra Shulman, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue in the UK, tells me, “London Fashion Week is an example of how successful something can become when you can combine great talent with first rate organisation and support. British designers are currently playing a major part in the international fashion world and the collections they are showing are both inspiring and successful on a commercial level.”

Meanwhile Tom Ford, the thinking man’s style guru, and a designer who made significant waves when he decided to show in London, says, “I am so happy to be showing my menswear and womenswear collections in London. It is one of the most influential cities in the world for fashion. The design schools are exceptional, and the street style and youth culture have started some of the most important global trends ever. My design studio is based in the UK and I am pleased to help support the British fashion industry.”

But you don’t need to take their word for it: just wear it instead. London doesn’t have a constricting style; Erdem, Simone Rocha, Nicholas Kirkwood, Burberry or Tom Ford? All of them? Or get a ticket to a show or a party: at the last LFW in September, I bumped into Erin O’Connor, Poppy Delevingne, Roland Mouret, Antonio Berardi and Philip Treacy at the Claridge’s ‘preparty’, amid a buzz of anticipation rarely seen anywhere else in the world. Meanwhile at the Browns Focus party the next day, where the high-octane mood was fuelled by high-octane tequila cocktails, the guests were not famous, just brilliantly and creatively put together, a perfect walking, dancing uber-street-style Instagram. A hop and a skip away at Longchamp’s dazzling opening party, Kate Moss, Georgia May Jagger, Lily Cole, Mick Jagger and Otis Ferry created a kind of pop-up Studio 54 on Regent Street.

London has always known how to party. Now, everyone’s paying attention.

londonfashionweek.co.uk

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Reading time: 3 min