Ibby Njoya

0:00 [Applause]

0:07 so yes I'm a artist set designer based like working mainly in fashion.

0:14 But yeah I'm gonna get into it so wow that was really loud my work I think the way I describe it is like I love to play with like color shapes and like I like you said it's a dance between color and shapes and movements so and I'm also really lucky to have many inspiring people around that I collaborate with that give me like that push me through like the thinking process and you know the creative element and also giving me the platform to be able to like speak my language which is like something that yeah we don't get to do all the time.

1:02 So yeah we've worked with like many different publications and the days family is a big big supporter in what we do so they give us a lot of like work. And we get to really dream in those kind of spaces but yeah.

1:19 I think like when I started my work was very much based in this idea of this idea of kind of like merging color bringing that into fashion because you know.

1:32 I think I'm a big fan of color and I love how you can kind of like put them together and with the model and the fashion in front of it you know it could be quite exciting so so yeah like that's that's the basic version of my work there's a couple of projects that I wanted to kind of like highlight in this talk and the first one was like tenzin turns in this this kid in nepal he's six years old one of the guys imro the fashion editor at days he he messaged me he was like look there's this kid in the poll I watched him on apple tv like he sent me like the he sent me like the the video and this kid was like five years old at the time he was like oh he's a photographer look at the way he's like shoes we should go I was like cool let's go and like all of a sudden we're like okay cool it's actually happening and I was like this is actually happening and I was speaking to my agent and he was like yeah okay cool this is happening and we flew all the way to nepal I think I was like I had to I spent like one day there I could only do one day so we flew all the way there met this kid he's amazing like the most inspiring kid I've ever met but however when we got there because it was kind of like it was me imroo there was like and amber's assistant and like we had like the local producer but nothing else nothing else like normally shoots have like so many elements to it. And we just when we got out of the airport we were like we just realized what we just did because this could get at any point but anyways we went there we met the kid he was really sweet really like amazing however at one point he was just like yeah I don't want to take pictures I don't remember turning to imran just being there like okay here we go but then all of a sudden he was like yeah I'm into it.

3:40 And we met him and just like we took him around and and he like he was so great he got like we got in and reopened like the the suitcase and all the kids just came running they basically just started wearing the stuff and tenzin was just there like you you stand there let me take a picture and then it's like and I was like we were just there like me. And we were like yes sick and then.

4:06 And then he was like oh I was like oh can you draw a moustache on one of the kids and we were just there like yeah okay let's go and then we just it was so crazy there was so much energy there and he as a six years old six-year-old kid he was so inspiring and his photography is just like a different viewpoint you know for for us and one thing that our work is so much about is about this play this element of you know finding your inner child I think we as artists we train so much to kind of like have this perfection and everything has to be a certain way.

4:43 And we kind of like lose this element of like you know being a child again and I think what was amazing about this kid was he was able to show us that.

4:53 And then bring us into that world and really like we were so excited by the end of it.

5:01 But yeah like the images and we when we came back we showed it to the day's family and they gave him the cover of days and we were just there like yes come on tenzin but it was it was really really really exciting I mean like that kid right over there man he just like took that thing put it on. And it was just like running around like this.

5:23 And it's like I mean I'm not sure that you guys have seen the video but it was like the most amazing chaos I've ever seen but it was really fun actually another project I wanted to talk about was we shot this like british vogue cover with all of the all of the black girls and for us like sometimes when we we you you see the final like this is the final kind of like cover but this is actually how it started yeah. So is you know I remember getting the message from raphael he just sent me like this this message that circling was that's me like are you talking about this.

6:09 And then he was like no it's like look at the whole image I was like okay cool but I kind of like after I was like oh cool cool colors I was like you talking about man sending this like but after a bit I was like okay cool he was like okay let's create this. And I was like great let's go so we ended up kind of like coming up with this idea. And we wanted to kind of like simplify because I mean as you can see before my work is so much based on color and it's really like loud and bold and so much.

6:43 And so we wanted to kind of simplify it and kind of think about what was the most important thing for us in this kind of story. And we wanted to kind of like get the girls to to speak their language and just have some stuff in there that was kind of like just as an accent to kind of bring that bring that out and you know we we ended up kind of like having with raphael's eye and you know edward's like styling it was really really beautiful and we kind of like ended up with this. And this this project to me was like quite amazing because it created so much man it out like this world is crazy it's like you know. Anyways I'm not going to get into the politics of it all.

7:26 But it's like it's quite interesting to see the feedback how you know this kind of story ♪

7:33 stirred up a lot of but anyways yeah.

7:36 So we wanted to kind of like really play with like simplicity you know having something that is like a simple color and then you have these elements that kind of like heighten the kind of visual elements of it. And this this.

7:50 This is the saddest point of me for me. Actually we spent we spent so much time looking for this table oh my god I remember right like raph was like I want I can't remember what reference he showed me here I remember he showed me this reference like with a table that's like the end there and all the way here and there's just two chairs it was like can I have this I was like no like there's no table that's made like that it's like oh can we get a table that's big like beautiful and I was like yeah okay we spent so much time looking and we found this table and this table was so nice oh my god it was like the natural kind of like wood really old the chair also he was like I want it all blue it's like great and and and this is us painting the things yeah yeah.

8:44 So like you know it was our on a long bench and we couldn't find a long bench in time because these things happen so quickly we don't like you know and and that's the thing about fashion is that you you never have enough time there's not enough time. And we had little time to kind of like put this all together.

9:05 So we managed to find out find like this old church bench and like found the chairs from somewhere else the table from somewhere else and yeah we kind of like brought it all together and and then yeah like put this put this together and yeah we're really really really like excited about this project.

9:27 And it came out like really really well you know more than I could kind of like imagine it coming for like a simple idea. And I think one thing that was quite interesting about this project for us was how you can kind of come from this more is more kind of like background to kind of like being considered in terms of the choices that you make for like you know as as an artist as a set designer it's like one of those things that you can put everything in a set but if it doesn't tell the story then there's no point of having it there.

10:03 So yeah it was like really nice to kind of like remove all of this element and kind of have a simple story and a simple narrative there. And it's something that I'm doing a lot with my work now and a lot of stuff that we're working with is just to play with how these element of color me.

10:25 Now then means this this 3d kind of like you know playful considered elements you know within the set so yeah like this kind of like this shoot told me a lot about you don't need to have all of these colors if you don't want to but you can if you want to but it just depends on the shoe so yeah like now we're working a lot with like the simplicity elements and the people we collaborate with and yeah just trying to tell like different kind of stories really.

11:01 But yeah I don't know where I'm going with this now. But yeah.

11:05 I think yeah thank you so much for listening to me I really appreciate it thank you