When it comes to fashion, there are people who work in fashion, people who buy fashion, and then there are the fashion nobles. Feranmi Eso is obviously the fashion noble! On our second visit to London in 2024 we met Feranmi- a stylist, artist, and master of conversation. Since meeting we have spent more than hours chatting shit and stating opinions together. We have worked on editorials, stories, as well as our most recent show where he styled The Royal Court Runway. After the show we spent a couple hours in the park together to try and summarize everything thats in his noble mind.
Feranmi Eso: Is this the interview?
Ryan Cardoso: Yes, I feel like we should start with styling. What's British about your styling and what you do?
Feranmi: I’m not sure actually. I'm actually inspired by New York in terms of casting. I know it's not styling but I see casting as a part of styling. I've always been inspired by New York.
Ryan: How is casting styling?
Feranmi: Casting is styling because when you are styling, you are styling someone, the person is the style. Casting is styling because it’s about the way you walk, the way you talk, that's how you're styled. It's not just about what you wear.
Ryan: I think that's specific to what you do as a stylist, because most stylists are just styling based on what they want the story to be.
Feranmi: Exactly, I think good stylist know the difference
Ryan: So you can't style before you know who you are working with?
Feranmi: I can, which I kind of did for our show (season two of Dauan Jacari), but I think it helps me a lot. I think if people don't have similar taste, it can go wrong!
Ryan: Is your styling Nigerian? When you were in Nigeria, you were sending me photos of the style there and I feel like they were doing an interpretation of fashion, but I think what you do is an interpretation of style and not focusing on fashion.
Feranmi: Yes that's true, but I don't know. I think my work takes influence from everything. It’s not only Nigerian, I think it's Japanese, British, American,African American, I think it's Russian. I amalgamate different things from different parts of the world and wider culture when I'm styling.
Ryan: So why do you live in London?
Feranmi: Cause I grew up here and because it has a fashion thing going on, and this is where im starting. It's a good place to start because the people kind of mind their business and people are doing their own thing. You don't need to be the next person, every brand can be respected for their own thing. London also has resources, and it's calm here, there's not too much going on. You just work and mind your business, if you want to.
DJ Chappel: When you say work and mind your business, this past week working with you on the show, I realized that vibe is a big thing. Can you talk more about your process and what you need to work? What's on your rider, what kind of music do you style to?
Feranmi: I actually usually style to John Glacier and Klein’s albums. I love Klein. I want to listen to something that takes me to a vortex. It needs to sound consistent but also abstract, which is why I prefer albums and bodies of work by one person. I just want my mind to not have to think about anything when I'm styling. I like to listen to intelligent music, especially when working. Sometimes I forget to eat when I'm working.Water is also super important. I like all of my rails to be put on flat walls and straight. I don't want people sitting next to any of the clothes, and people's clothes that they came in with need to be clearly separated. I don't want anyone or anything on my shoulders. It helps if whoever I'm working with can tell the next thing I want or need, I don't want to be asked what I want.
DJ: Yea if you asked me what I want I'm just going to be stressed.
Ryan: Yes in a restaurant if you ask your manager what you should do next, they are going to just make up some busy answer for you to do, it's the same with creative work. I think your process is a little chaotic. Working with you in styling I've noticed you're someone who needs to try every single thing before you figure out what you want.
Feranmi: For sure, I need to find myself within it. In terms of your collection, I know you had everything in it. I just needed to find myself first, while also understanding what you wanted. You specifically thought about styling pieces when you were making and designing it, so most of it was there, I just needed to find myself first. I was trying to find the needle in a haystack. That's why I try different things out. Also with you guys, you have different aims that a lot of people don't with clothes. You want to include everybody and different body types, so what does that look like and how can I still make people still feel sexy in a different way? Everyone deserves the feeling of feeling sexy and hot.
Ryan: It seems like sexy is always in the work you are doing
Feranmi: Yes, but I think sexy is a fashion thing, I think everything in fashion is about feeling sexy. I remember one of my tutors at Saint Martins said in a lecture, that fashion is only about sex, and you could see everyone in the room was kind of shocked. From then I remember looking at the things I liked and being like ‘hmmmmm…is it’? Like Mowa’s BA graduate collection was a really big initial influence for me, and taught me a lot. She showed bodies similar to mine in a different way. In a hedonistic way and against everything I had perceived my body to be. And for me it made me realize the possibilities of my own body, how I can clothe my own body, and that's when I realized fashion could actually release a lot of things and give you power. That's how I found the power of fashion, and that's why I want other people to be realized in that way for themselves.
Ryan: That's interesting because I feel like you dress very differently from how you style. So what do you get off by styling someone different from how you dress?
Feranmi: I think for me, when dressing, I like uniform. It's similar to the music thing, I want to project. I can't be busy thinking about what I'm wearing, I only want to wear one thing. I want to be in a place where I can think and not get fussy, I feel like clothes can get really fussy.
DJ: Do you think sexuality comes up when you're styling?
Feranmi: My relation to sexuality or the talents?
DJ: Both
Feranmi: I think it's an interesting thing…..Colin, my friend, I would style him a lot for editorial and personal projects and he would tell me that his dad would be like ‘this is gay, or this is this’. But Colin loved my work and working with me. He would always be open to me dressing him in so many different ways and he loved it because he felt that same kind of release, of not feeling bound to a specific way of dressing and looking. There's a photo I took for my final project where he has this collar and tie, and these rubber suspenders I got from a market. But on the body it could be perceived as bondage, and he had a feather in his mouth. But he put that as his whatsapp picture cause he loved it, and his dad was outraged telling him to delete it for months, which he didn't. I never saw it as anything. I think it comes from my parents, like my parents never projected shit onto me so when they see my work, they understand my work is just what it is. I think that's where the Nigerian comes in. I think what's considered femme and sexualised in a Western context is different to what is considered that in a Nigerian or African context.
I think even when I went to Nigeria this last time, and seeing my grandpa and saw what he wore. My dad designed my grandpa’s outfit for his 90th birthday (in Nigeria people normally design their own outfits for an event/occasion), and I have this video of when my grandpa tried it on, he kept looking in the mirror and feeling himself and paying attention to what he wore, and I think that attention to detail is so prevalent in the Nigerian community. That the men care about what they are wearing and how they look just as much as the women do.
Ryan: Yes in the western context that would be clocked as gay (femme).
Feranmi: I think for me I want to flip things, I want to flip the possibilities of how we see things, how we see men, how we see women, how we see how we can dress. I want to progress something. What's the point of styling, if we're not adding something to it? Even if someone has progressed it already like Judy Blame, Misa Hylton or Simon Foxton. We need to continue it. We aren’t the first people to do it but we need to continue it cause there’s very few people that are thinking in those ways. You know I’ve never been confined by gender in terms of the people I can be around, the music I listen to, the things I can be interested in. . That’s why my work is free reign to do anything I want and I take that very seriously and my parents and family know that, and I think if people meet me and see my work there’s an understanding there, and if people don’t get it, they don’t get it and I'm fine with that.
Ryan: What is a stylists job?
Feranmi: There's different types of stylist. What type are you talking about?
Ryan: All
Feranmi: It makes me go back to this fashion book, I read about fashion stylists (Fashion Stylists: History, Meaning and Practice by Ane Lynge-Jorlen). I think it’s the only book about fashion stylists ever because stylist is a new term that was coined in the 80’s. What you find out at the end of the book, after interviewing so many stylists, is that no one is happy with the term stylist. They either see themselves as fashion editors or art directors or image consultants or whatever, but they aren’t satisfied with the word stylist. I actually love the word stylist because I think it’s super limiting and what I do is not limiting and I like people limiting me cause that’s a good place to work from. Cause you know how everyone loves saying they are a “creative director” and that’s such a hard thing to work from. You have to prove that, but if I think I'm a stylist you think the bare minimum. “All I do is dress people”…cool
Ryan: But what is the job?
Feranmi: I think it varies depending on the client. This week I saw my job as going into a brand, and making sense of things and links that weren’t necessarily there before. I think that’s it, making links and through lines.
Ryan: It sounds like you want to be the mayor of brands
Feranmi: I don’t think I'm a mayor. I honestly see my job as a supporting act. And I don’t need to be the star, cause if everyone does well, I do well.
Ryan: I think stylists could be the most important person on a set because they usually come with their cast (like you did with Jordan, the fit model for season two), and the editor usually starts a shoot through the stylist.
Feranmi: Yes they get the makeup artist, the pose…
DJ: Before there was a movement director, there was a stylist who was there saying oh she’s gonna stand like this because her dress is beautiful and we need to see the whole thing, and the back is better than the front so lets make sure we get a backshot.......
Feranmi: Yes and I’ve been regretfully even worse than that, in the past like “oh this light setup needs to be like this” but I think it’s only when the stylist is allowed to do that. If someone is intelligent enough to be open to true collaboration, they will be open to hearing their collaborators opinion because it creates a better outcome.
DJ: Do you think you have an ideal stylist job? In terms of right now thinking about how you make money, express yourself, and validate yourself between creativity and work. Do you have a dream job?
Feranmi: You know what it is, If I could do what I did with you guys styling the show and the Ewusie show, then I'm good. Like that’s me in my element I get to go in style a show, consult with a brand, I love that shit. I think that’s my thing.
DJ: So your specialty is runway?
Feranmi: Runway, editorial. I still love to do editorial but editorial doesn’t pay most of the time. But runway is it you know, or even just going into a brand and consulting. It’s not even about it having my aesthetic but I just love what comes with it.
DJ: There’s a shoot, a campaign, and certain limitations, which you said you like.
Feranmi: Exactly. And you know what I love, I don’t have to worry about pulling the garment cause it just gets made.
Ryan: It cancels out sending the emails for the pulls
Feranmi: I think brands just have this energy where people want to be a part of them. It’s its own vortex. Yes.. To answer your question I think this is what’s British about my styling, is that refinement. Going in and thinking about how I can elevate something, I think British people are good at refining ideas.
Feranmi: When I was younger when I used to go out and say I wore a pair of joggers, my dad would be like you can’t go out like that. It has to be a ‘proper jogging bottom’, and thinking about what classifies a ‘proper jogging bottom’ versus one you wear around the house. I think that’s what built my taste. That’s the thing about England: you can’t just slap on anything and walk out of the house, people are gonna look at you like you’re crazy. There has to be some sort of presentation and order to how you carry yourself and how you dress, for better or for worse.
Ryan: Thinking about the next three years, what are three things you want to do?
Feranmi: I don’t know, I feel like I work very in tandem with what is given to me. So it depends what opportunities are given to me. I just want to build my characters, build my universe, continue in fashion and expand on what I've been doing the last three years. It’s a development. When I was younger I used to be like I specifically want this and that, but that doesn't work, as sometimes the opportunity you want isn't always the best opportunity for you.
I could say now that I want to style for this or that brand or work with this person but in 3 years I may not even like that brand anymore. So I guess whatever comes to me and what’s right for me, I want to be in my purpose. I want to inspire the kids and the people who have come before me. I think both of them need to be inspired. And I want to do stuff with people who understand me and not have to explain.
DJ: We will make money in 3 years and be able to hire you.
Feranmi: Yesss let’s go. But even when you can’t hire me, I’m still there.
DJ: I think one thing that aligns a lot with our brand is we are heavily inspired by movies and characters. Are there any characters that always find a way into your work?
Feranmi: I didn’t realize when I was styling your collection that there were characters that I have been thinking about my whole life and when I watched the show back, I realised they came to life and had words to say. I'm not the biggest movie person, but I love the idea of a dominant woman that can cut people in whatever way that means. I love the idea of a man that embodies himself so much that it is masculine but not in the form of how people may traditionally see masculinity. Just an embodied person. That’s why the casting is so important, because I want the cast to embody a fully developed character. I also love my characters to be a bit mischievous as well. Someone that’s tongue in cheek, that doesn’t generally take things too seriously but takes the way they present themselves and how they carry themselves seriously. There’s an attention to detail but also a lack of care.
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