Dazed Club Spotlight is our monthly series showcasing up-and-coming talent from the Dazed creative community. If you’d like to be featured, download the app HERE and join our community. You just have to post your best project(s) and the Dazed team will take a look – we select one person from the community to spotlight per week, which then end up in our monthly spotlight roundup.
Morgan Widmer Spotlight18 Images
“My brand is called Morgania. It’s a world I’ve created to escape into. My collection ‘Welcome to Morgania’ is a love letter to, and a reckoning with, my upbringing in a small town in West Virginia. It’s where I learned how to make something out of nothing – that scrappy resourcefulness shaped me, and this collection. The clothes reimagine rural American staples, including ‘wife-beater’ tank tops, workwear, hunting gear and biker jackets, as they’re ‘morgania-fied’ using up-cycled materials such as vintage leather belts and deadstock fabrics.
“Collage is the backbone of my design process – how I visually mash together these contradictory elements and see what sticks, from found-object sculptures to dress-up sessions with my family members collaging random objects and samples directly on the body. It’s playful, chaotic, and a bit sentimental. This photoshoot captures Morgania through a surreal, dreamlike, half-magical, half-mundane, kind of punky lens and shot in the family home of photographer Morgan Williams, in the outskirts of London.
“My creative scene is at car boot sales. They’re where I feel most at home in London. I get excited about the hodgepodge that people dump out to sell that has sat in their houses forever. Not to mention the people who sell and shop there, who are some of the most stylish in London!” – Morgan Widmer
Victoria Tavoukjian: HVY WTHR Spotlight9 Images
“I started my label Hvy Wthr on a whim when I was in college studying fashion design. I learned to sew before school when I was a cosplayer. ‘Tempest’ was my final senior project with a few changes. I developed a technique using bottles full of bleach and dye to create an abstract pattern. This was during Covid, when I was trying to entertain myself and use up any spare material. It was cool because it satisfied my desire not to remake the same piece over and over. The silhouettes and notions were inspired by Lolita and Visual Kei.
“After graduating, I showcased a revised version through a modelling agency fashion show. They had photographers taking pictures of the models in a hotel in Hollywood and, while everyone was great, I wasn’t happy with the decor of the conference centre. I didn’t wanna waste the photos so I chose a song to listen to for each outfit and just started tearing and glueing paper until I thought I was done. I picked songs that resonated with me for each look and listened to them on loop to block everything else out. The goal was to embody a vibe based on the models’ poses and colour scheme. Everything was hand-torn and stuck together.
“My creative scene is, first and foremost, my friends in LA. They’re my motivation and muses. From the ones who model for me to the ones that assist me in my struggles. We’re all creatives in some capacity, so it’s fun to share ideas and work together. That’s how we all became friends in the first place. I’m trying to build a network in New York as well, but I was born and raised in LA. The haunted facades and dry sun will always call to me” – Victoria Tavoukjian
Simon Pella Spotlight8 Images
“I’m a fashion photographer based in East London. Originally from Canada, I moved here to pursue photography more seriously, hoping that one day it would pay the bills. I’d describe my work as low – often zero – budget, high-quality, aesthetically pleasing, and narrative-forward. I’m all about telling a story through lighting and styling. To me, those are the two most important elements in fashion photography, because they’re what truly separates strong imagery from weak.
“The concept behind this shoot, titled Just Girls, was simple: create an editorial that highlights older women in a way we usually only see Gen Z depicted. From there, the hardest part was building a team. I didn’t know a single creative in London, so I started cold DMing and emailing people whose work I admired. Thankfully, some incredibly talented folks were kind enough to lend their time, and after months of searching, I found the team that brought this vision to life. As a full-time waiter, I’m usually working with little to no budget on personal projects. But for this shoot I invested a bit – paying for the location, feeding the crew, and renting some key gear. I wanted the images to feel like they were snapped by an invisible third friend tagging along on the night – candid, but still elevated. The single-flash setup helped create that illusion without compromising on image quality.
“There are so many artists who influence me, both creatively and personally. Right now, I’m especially inspired by Petra Collins – fellow Canadian! – Elizaveta Porodina, and Szilveszter Mako. Each of them has such a unique, instantly recognisable style, which is what I’m working toward for myself. That’s the dream: to create work that people can spot a mile away and know it’s mine.” – Simon Pella
“I’ve recently been focused on exploring different narratives of femininity, using my real-life experiences growing up in London. I think a lot about modes of survival and resistance in my work. It could be soft, it could be brutal, but it’s there. I guess I started creating work like this around six years ago, researching the representation of Black women in the algorithm and media.
“I’m drawn to the tactile nature of textiles and how they can be both comforting and challenging. I use them to explore the same themes as my paintings, but in a way that feels more immediate. I’m trying to tell stories that I don’t see too often, about femininity in adversity, and how this can be a form of its own resistance.
“As far as influences go, it’s real life. My lived experience and what needs amplifying is what makes me want to create. I don’t really use references for my work, it’s just what comes to mind and how that unfolds. My creative scene is probably made up of a lot of strong creative women under the radar now, a lot of designers, cinematographers and photographers, and sometimes parts of scenes I’ve been in briefly, like the UK music scene or streetwear. And I’ve just been offered my first proper solo exhibition, which will be in September. You can find more of my work over on my website.” – Betty