The rising street-couture brand to watch reimagining 90s video vixens

J-Lo’s “Get Right” is blasting through the speakers while badass women are dancing and chucking dollar bills on the floor. Someone else waves a bottle of Hennessy in the air. We’re not at a club or in a 00s music video though, this is Fortie Label’s AW18 show, and it’s unlike anything fashion week has seen before. And the woman behind it? That’s Essie Buckman, the designer inspired by hip-hop culture and rebellious women, who’s presenting a fearless exploration of black identity through her brand. Looking to the lesser-known Bling Ring – a nineteenth-century girl gang dubbed the Forty Elephants, who would steal diamond rings and shoplift fur coats in London’s West End – the Central Saint Martins (CSM) alumna is creating her own “sexy and a little bit sinister” sisterhood in 2018.

For her high-octane AW18 collection, Essie looked to video vixens of the 90s and early 00s. “Those women [were] meant to be objects in the back,” she explains. “Now, she’s the one commanding the attention – she’s not just a prop to fill the space, she’s got her own swag, her own style, her own uniform. That’s why the running colours throughout the collection are browns and golds – it’s very unified. I had my friend, Gogo [Lupin], start the show as this male protagonist throwing the money, kind of corny in a way. And then the girls take over. She takes the fur coat; she takes the power back.”

Swiftly after graduating from CSM in 2016, Essie received a message from the OG bad gal herself: Rihanna. “It was really random,” Essie says. “Her stylist Jahleel Weaver emailed me and was like, ‘We’d love to borrow this and that for Rihanna’s tour at OVO Festival.’ I was freaking out. For so long I would say, ‘Rihanna’s going to wear my stuff!’, not really thinking it would happen, but just putting it out there. For me, I feel like nobody has ever come as close as Rihanna to a Lil’ Kim of the 90s. Lil’ Kim didn’t give a fuck about anyone or what anyone thought of her – she’d wear everything and nothing and still be respected. [Rihanna] is a very opinionated, strong, black woman and she brings that runway to life.”

Of meeting RiRi in person, she remembers, “Jahleel texted me to say, ‘We’re in town, do you want to go out?’ I’m trying to act cool and whatever – just a casual link-up with Rihanna,” Essie says, laughing. “Me and my friend just grabbed the 55 bus, running there, and went to meet them at Mayfair’s TAPE club. Rihanna was glowing and put her hands to her face and said, ‘Oh my God, I’m so proud of you!’ I was like, ‘Well, you made it happen.’”

Born to Ghanaian parents in America and raised in North London, Essie takes “bits and pieces” from her life, picking apart subcultures within black culture and the complex ideologies that lie within femininity. Living in Ghana for four years in her late teens when her parents divorced was an “eye- opening” experience. “There’s a completely different vibe out there,” she says. “I ended up really loving it. It’s nice to get back to your roots and with people that look like you, you know?”

Responding to her varied upbringing, Essie’s fierce street-couture aesthetic involves systematic juxtapositions. In London, she’d often “hang around Camden, inspired by punks or R&B girls”. In Ghana, it was “all about labels and showing your status”. At home, her mother “would never wear anything flashy; [she’s] super classic and conservative.”

“My mother is one of the strongest women that I know,” she says. “We both have very strong opinions. That always feeds into my collections – representing someone who is bold, popping, always about their business.”

“Growing up there was just no black presence,” she says. “Unfortunately I just thought, ‘Oh right, that’s normal’. There was no Instagram at the time where you could voice your opinion.” For Essie, featuring a diverse mix of models in her shows is “something that is just a given”, and she regularly calls on her creative pals to model her collections: “My friend Ambre [Hazlewood] from Paris is one of my muses. She’s a bald-headed girl with a big bum – guys love her – but she’s also a tomboy, super funny and dorky.”

Looking ahead, dressing a modern-day princess would be the dream. “If Meghan Markle ever renews her vows I’d love to be like, ‘Girl, come to me honey,’” she laughs. “I would give just more of a vibe – more fantasy.”

To see Essie Buckman’s work visit fortielabel.com.