Wrap & Chat: Denise Francis-Brown

Episode 1.

Guest: Denise Francis-Brown, Visual Merchandising Lecturer, Westminster University

Denise Francis-Brown LinkedIn profile

• Denise’s favourite designer: British emerging talent Ahluwalia

• Denise’s 3 top tips for entering the creative industry:

  1) Not to be concerned if you are the only Black person or person of colour in the room. Use that to your advantage.

  2) Do your project research and do it well. There is a font of information out there so don’t rely just on social media.

  3) Making mistakes is a great thing. You can and will learn from it.

Denise’s favourite style era was late 80’s /early 90’s Hip Hop, with thee Janet Jackson being a key ‘hair influencer’ on fashion textiles student Denise - during her degree studies at Winchester School of Art - where she sported her Poetic Justice box-braids with passion.

It’s clear from our conversation that for Denise, much of the diverse creativity, music breadth and music video vibrancy and energy from those halcyon days of Hip Hop and R’n’B have long gone, instead replaced with an identikit look and feel, especially with some of the women. The surgery-manipulated all look the same. Yes, you know the ones I mean…

Such is the power of this ‘artificialised beauty’ - that has arisen due to the permeations of social media within our everyday lives - for her Masters, Denise’s recent thesis focuses on this topic in direct relation to its impacts on the fashion industry as a whole. I look forward to reading Denise’s completed dissertation once it becomes available to share.

For more insights, listen to episode 1 of Wrap & Chat: Culture in Conversation to hear more about what Denise had to say.