Like many countries around the world, Brazil may be governed by intolerant, harmful politics, but its queer community is defiant in the face of adversity. Photographer Rodrigo Oliveira documents the courage of the thriving queer culture.

Bringing on the lace revolution, Kasia Kucharska is the European designer merging her interdisciplinary vision of architecture and fashion to create hybridised garments from scribbled cycle shorts to bralets.

For Kévin Nompeix and Florentin Glémarec of EGONlab., the Parisian brand dedicated to supporting social movements, conversation and self-love, the trick to understanding our future is looking back at our past. Following their AW21 collection, we spoke to the designer duo on viral Octogenarians, design inspirations and the ups and downs of working with someone you love.

Caitlin Yates is a fashion designer with change on her mind. Addressing political, moral and social issues, Yates wants her menswear pieces to help question the world around us, break down stereotypes, and expose the true nature of our societies.

In the space between childhood pop culture and arts-and-crafts class, you’ll find Maya Golyshkina’s imagination. The 19-year-old artist both makes and models her up-cycled fashion creations, the beauty and uniqueness of her designs even catching the eye of fashion icon and designer, Marc Jacobs.

Sabrina Lousoir asserts that knitwear can be figure-hugging, sexy and empowering. From cut-out tops to dresses and crops, Sabby Lou Knit, which Lousoir founded five years ago, is the Black-and-female-owned business that wants to make it clear that Black women can be whoever they want to be. And while wearing an SLK piece; who’s to say you can’t be?

Kaiwen Shi is the Chinese designer and Parsons graduate who looks way back for inspiration, right towards her infancy from the days of dressing up dolls. “I like to maintain the childish feeling in my work,” she shares. “It makes me feel warm and authentic.”

Described by Hong Kong-born, NYC-based jewellery maker Clare Ngai as “small-batch custom nostalgic & whimsical goodies”, the BONBONWHIMS business is a one-woman show inspired by all things ‘kawaii’ and ‘kitschy.’

24-year-old photographer Joshua Onabowu will not let one style alone define him. An avid fan of Tumblr and Megan Thee Stallion, his fashion and portrait work toys with human emotion and dependency, all with the goal of uncovering the truth.

Twenty-year-old Anya Tisdale takes the cake for her make-up artistry. In a bid to reclaim the term ‘cakeface’, the emerging make-up artist flips the definition on its delicious head in this culinary-inspired project.

For 22-year-old poet and model, Theo Gayle, substance abuse quickly became the door to his creativity; the buffer between numbness and exploring the emotions that he wanted to put onto paper.

Masha Popova is the Ukrainian designer behind some of fashion’s most interesting looks. Worn by the likes of Zara Larsson, Lil Miquela and BLACKPINK, the CSM grad last week showcased her AW21 collection through a film as part of London Fashion Week’s digital-only showcase.

Malthus is the 25-year-old musician, performer and composer who first arrived in London with little more than £30, a bag full of clothes, and the hope of kicking off his career as a musician. A couple of years on, the self-taught creative has collaborated with the likes of Charles Jeffrey, and Heliot Emil.

Describing themselves as “an anti-capitalist project” responding to the way “the fashion industry works through the mantra of an eccentric misunderstood stylist”, Clifford Jago turns trash into eye-catching fashion nonsense – we’re talking McDonald’s chip packets as shoulder pads and traffic cones for hats.

Changing your hair can be an identity forming experience, and for hair artist and stylist John Allan, the strands do all the talking. With each head a canvas for experimentation, pushing the boundaries to create more defiant ways as to how we perceive the hair on our very heads, Allan boasts a repertoire of clients from Mowalola to Beabadoobee.

“Finding an internship was like chasing the holy grail,” says third-year CSM fashion student Cécile Bousselat who, together with Maïssane Zinaï have taken measures into their own hands to launch the Central Saint Martins Fashion Alumni Club, an initiative that aims to connect students with internships, jobs and graduates.

Inspired by literally anything around her (broken iPhone cables that she found when tidying her room have become a trademark of the designer’s), there’s no denying that Tega Akinola is an up-cycling icon.

Ceramic handbags, 20cm tall high-heels with twisted toenails pointing out, and vases with long, bony fingers are not just creations made to make you feel uncomfortable. They are the hellish fruits of Naomi Gilon, the Brussels-based artist with the talent of reshaping our perceptions around ceramics.

Ming Lim is the 19-year old CSM student whose work is influenced by an almost life-long relationship with Dream-Reality Confusion Disorder (DRC), spending her childhood and some of her adult life within the space between reality and dreams.

“The fundamental of human flourishing is to practice the art of non-conformity and self-contemplation,” writes make-up artist, David Gillers. With an aesthetic self-described as ‘ugly beauty’, it seems more apt to credit his electric employment of colour and movement as a challenge to the very existence of stereotypical ‘beauty’ at all.