Rich, white and privileged - the creative arts sector has a class problem. Particularly in class-obsessed Britain, where middle-class people are twice as likely to work in creative jobs than their working class contemporaries. According to the Evening Standard, "the worlds of TV, film, music and the arts are dominated by straight, able-bodied white men living in London, despite them only accounting for 3.5% of the [UK] population."
Not that this is purely a UK problem. In New York, 85% of artists represented by commercial galleries are white. In Australia, where one in four of us were born overseas, culturally and linguistically diverse creatives are still barely represented in fashion at all. And consider the global luxury brands, with their spate of recent cookie-cutter creative director hires - can anyone actually tell the difference between these men from their photos alone?
But, "What about the new editor at Vogue?" I hear you say. Too often, the celebrated hire is still the only Black or brown person in the room.
I bet you can think of a thousand places where career progress is affected by your postcode, where you went to school and what your parents did. And lurking behind all that: race, gender, sexuality, difference, not to mention how much cash you've got...It's time for a power shift.
Meet Rahemur Rahman, a British-Bengali artist, educator and designer who is determined to change the system, not simply tinker round the edges of representation.
He made it, despite the odds. Raised in working class Tower Hamlets, he studied fashion at Central Saint Martins, where he now teaches. Designs from his debut London Fashion Week menswear collection were acquired by the V&A Museum. Now, he's the director of training and development at Bari, a new incubator supporting South Asian creatives in East London as part of the British Bangladeshi Fashion Council.
This is a lively conversation about what it takes to, practically, turn things around - not just talk about it. Hint: no true diversity and inclusion without addressing the class barrier! We're also talking the wonders of weaving, creative innovation meets heritage craft, social impact fashion, holidays with friends, and the joy of working on what matters.
NOTES
RAHEMUR RAHMAN graduated from CSM in 2014, and today he’s a senior lectures on the BA there.
The V&A says: “Championing a sustainable, ethically-produced and gender-neutral approach to fashion design, Rahemur Rahman makes clothes "for the people who dream in colour".
The British Bangladeshi Fashion Council’s BARI incubator supporting creatives in East London. Discover here. As Rahemur says, “bari” means village in Bengali and also in Italian, which makes sense because there’s a sizeable community of Italian-Bengalis who onward-migrated to East London in the 2010s. “It’s the idea that it takes a village, which I love… It’s about bringing people together to entrepreneurship in a different way that isn’t about being big and bad, massive business; [rather] being able to create niche little companies that can do specific things really well.”
BANGLADESH is known as the second-largest ready-made-garment producer in the world (after China) - for more see Episode 184 - Ten Years After Rana Plaza. But that’s the whole story. Check out Episode 160 with Moin Roberts Islam for an alternative take (Moin talks about Bangladesh about half way through this one).
ARANYA ECO is a fair trade craft collective founded by Ruby Ghuznavi in 1990, and ethically employing 3,000 artisans across Bangladesh. It is known for its beautiful block prints, hand loom jamdanis and natural dyes. Discover here. Arunya is a member of the World Crafts Council.
Embroidery samples by the women at @aranya_crafts produced for Rahemur’s label in 2021.
“In the UK, everything you do – where you shop, what you eat, how you live – is a reflection of your class…” Read Kay Leong’s VICE article here.
In a separate article, also for VICE, Rahemur answered the question: “What’s it like being a creative when you’re not middle class or white?” It begins: In 2022, Rahman became the first Bangladeshi fashion designer to exhibit at the V&A. He was the first to show at London Fashion Week in 2019, and is now one of the youngest lecturers at Central Saint Martins – the world’s most respected fashion school, attended by the likes of Alexander McQueen and Kim Jones. By all measures, his success is phenomenal. But he remembers a time when, as the son of a garment factory worker from Tower Hamlets, London, the world of fashion seemed impenetrable – and “Margiela” was nothing more than a weird sound…
“All of these kids, they’re from a different class or wealth background; they know about Surrealism and all the different artists; you know, they’ve been to Berlin! I hadn’t even left the country at that point, because my parents couldn’t afford to do our passport application.” Read the rest here.
Creative industries dominated by ‘straight, able-bodied white men living in London’, research finds…
Here’s that EVENING STANDARD ARTICLE.
Listen to Episode 173 with Georgina Johnson.
Rahemur Rahman A/W19, Photography Paul Phung
““In order to get the community on side, in order ot make change for the community, adding the complexity of sexuality and gender usually will put people off and it’s so sad.””
BENGALIS IN EAST LONDON The concentration of key manufacturing industries around East London’s docks meant it was heavily bombed in WWII. The migration of Bangladeshi workers here began in the 1950s when the government encouraged workers from Commonwealth countries to move to the UK to help rebuild. In the 1960s, many Bangladeshis settled in Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, drawn to the availability of low-cost housing and job opportunities in garment factories. The Bangladesh War of Independence (which amounted to genocide against Bengalis) spurred mass migration.
RACISM & VIOLENCE In 1978, Bangladeshi textile worker Altab Ali was stabbed to death as he walked home in Whitechapel. The attack sparked mass protests.
“In 1987, 16-year-old Syeda Choudhury, along with her parents, brother and sister, became one of the first Bengali families to move on to the Isle of Dogs. ‘It was scary,’ Choudhury told writer Karl Smith in 2011. ‘We lived up by Commercial Road [in Whitechapel, north-west of the Isle of Dogs], where lots of other Bengalis lived. A lot of people had told us that the Isle of Dogs was not a nice area, but at that time the council made only one offer for housing, so you had to take what you could get.’ The Choudhurys took up residence on the Barkantine estate, whose pointy-roofed tower blocks still stand today, like a rude objection to the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. ‘We were the only Bengali people in our block – and in the two or three other blocks, there was like one or two families.’ The ‘Islanders’ were never a homogenous community; estates like Barkantine had long been used to house tenants from elsewhere in London. But in the past they had been white. The Choudhurys soon found they were not welcome.
“Their lives marked by the same empire that had sustained the docks, East London’s Bengalis were no strangers to hostility: the thousands of families like the Choudhurys who had arrived from Bangladesh during the 1960s and 1970s had faced abuse and systematic discrimination since their arrival. Asian families were far more likely to experience homelessness or overcrowded living conditions, and had been a target for violence inspired by the BNP’s forerunner, the National Front, during the 1970s and 80s.” Read the rest, in an extract from Smith’s book, “I Fought the Nazi’s, and Now We’ve Voted them In,” here.
FOOTBALL HOOLIGANS & FASCISTS “People are frightened of us all over England” - delve into the historic issues with MILLWALL FOOTBALL CLUB via this 1977 Panorama doco, and this Vice article. In 1992, Millwall voted in the UK’s first ever BNP (far-right fascist political party) local councillor.
GENTRIFICATION Today, much of the area has been gentrified by the bankers’ paradise that is CANARY WHARF. During the pandemic though, demand for shiny office space plummeted. Is Canary Wharf losing its gloss?
First published in 1709, TATLER magazine is still celebrating classism and exclusion. Published by Conde Nasty.
RAGS TO RICHES is a myth / story trope used to uphold systemic injustices that hold people back. In Hollywood, in particular, they love a story about how anyone can make it if they try, on sheer ambition alone… Nonsense, when some of us start much further ahead than others.
White middle class people, are you ready to acknowledge your PRIVILEGE & give some power up? Food for thought here. Also, listen to last week’s ep with Caryn Franklin.
You need to follow DIET PARATHA ! They also do their own mentoring for South Asian creatives.
BERNI YATES is a knitwear designer, lecturer and the Knowledge Exchange Lead at Central Saint Martins.
A TEAM ARTS is a community youth arts organisation in Tower Hamlets. It’s funding was recently extended by the Alexander McQueen Foundation. Read all about it.
SIDIQ KAHN is Mayor of London. A former human rights lawyer, “the son of an immigrant Pakistani bus driver” was born and raised in Tooting, south London to a working-class Sunni Muslim-Muhajir family. He said of his mother in an interview with Guardian UK in 2015: “She had to quit school when she was 15. She had no qualifications. She went to a foreign country, knowing nobody. We had no relations here so it was pretty tough on her.” Sometimes even Khan, it seems, has trouble keeping track of his siblings. “She raised seven kids in a council estate with three bedrooms,” he says. “Eight kids, sorry, eight kids including me, in a three-bedroom council flat. At the same time, she was doing piecework. Do you know what piecework is? A bloke comes around with 50 dresses, you get 25p a dress. You saw her at the machine all the time just sewing the dresses. She did the piecework in the corner, cooked and fed the family, all of us together, all while my dad was out working all the hours God sends you, overtime and stuff.”
AQUASCUTUM was known for its sensible raincoats worn by Her Maj. It was established in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, when tailor and entrepreneur John Emary opened a gentlemen’s outfitters at 46 Regent Street. In 1853, after succeeding in producing the first waterproof wool, he had his discovery patented and renamed the company 'Aquascutum', Latin for 'watershield'. The company received a royal warrant in 1897 and introduced womenswear three years later. Family owned until 1990, when it was sold to a Japanese textile conglomerate - it is now owned by Chinese investors. Its been in and out of administration over the last few years, and it’s decades since their famous raincoats were made in Britain.
KIM JONES was style director of the men's ready-to-wear division at Louis Vuitton from 2011 to 2018. “DAMIER” is the name of the brand’s iconic checkerboard pattern, which was introduced by Louis himself in 1888. LIZARD LEATHER is an exotic skin, used by the luxury fashion industry, and produced in despicably cruel and unethical ways. Jones is currently artistic director of womenswear at Fendi - the famed fur house.
SARAH’S LIST was an emerging fashion talent initiative founded by journalist and BFC ambassador for emerging talent, Sarah Mower, initially in collaboration with Liberty London. Sarah continues to do much to support young fashion creatives.
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