Meet Melody Uyanga Ramsay, a fashion design graduate from Glasgow School of Art. Melody’s work recontextualises traditional clothing of “colonisers” being worn by people of colour to subvert historical stereotypes. Growing up as one of the only people of colour in a small Scottish town, Melody’s work is influenced by her own experiences. “Acknowledging history as an abiding presence in the setting of contemporary life has been a recurring theme within my work - looking to antiquated codes of dress and challenging the inhabited identity, I question how I could subvert socially normative expectations of ‘high’ fashion,” she says. Read on to learn more!
What is the most valuable thing you have learnt at university?
In short, I’ve matured my own work ethic and understood more poignantly, how to work more efficiently and not necessarily ‘harder’ in the traditional meaning of the word. I often felt anxious that I wasn’t able to ‘switch-off’ from my work because I’d go to bed thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. I think the fashion industry has had a culture of over-working as the norm and is notorious to be viciously competitive. Especially at an Art School, I’ve experienced this culture of living and breathing your craft, which is both honourable and insidious.
It’s only really in my final year and the last few months I’ve found relief in accepting that I can only do my best, at that current period of time and at the end of the day, it’s just clothes. I think it is an incredible blessing to be in a position to be endorsed in the anxious pride of Fashion and it is far more valuable to divert that obsessive energy towards the industry’s potential to empower BAME people, hone circular economies and educate through its cultural platform.
Tell us about your current projects and work, what have you been working on?
Since lockdown I have mainly been translating my physical portfolio into a digital format. I’ve really enjoyed learning about Web development and coding my own website. I’d always wanted to learn how to properly edit and produce films, so I’ve also been working on making short fashion films- as well as re-editing my parent’s wedding video for their anniversary. It’s building transferable skills like this I feel like is the best use of my time right now. I write myself mini-briefs and set myself deadlines so that I can still have a sense of routine and accomplishment!
What form does your final project take?
When lockdown began I’d started 3 of my 6 looks and finished 1, so I finished the looks I’d started and began to piece together my online portfolio. Studying at the Glasgow School of Art (having had 2 fires in the past) we’d learned to always take pictures of absolutely everything! So if someone was to go through my camera roll, they’d find countless photos of random fabrics and work in progress- and my dog. So I had a big bank of images to edit into on InDesign and Photoshop, some of which I also made into videos.
How have you evolved as a young creative while studying / working?
I began Art School as an insecure 17 year old, and have graduated as a 21 year old who still has insecurities, but now with the mindset and tools to add more value to my industry. I used to design with the idea that my work had to be visually engaging and not much more, but now I know that I find so much more fulfilment in creating designs with useful, thoughtful concepts in mind.
What are the messages and themes behind your project that you want people to take away? Do explore any topics like diversity, sustainability or politics in your work?
I was initially nervous about the concept for my final year collection because I was exploring dress fashions of ‘the coloniser’ as a person of colour, and how my work is essentially an act of subversion. I’d like to bring attention to the intersections between sustainability and systematic racism and prejudice. Growing up without much representation of minority backgrounds in mainstream fashion and media, I was always fascinated by the contextualisation of a person of colour in a classical or elevated setting.
I realised the power in visualising representation in fashion media and continue to meditate the inherent complexities this recontextualisation bears. This fascination with the sociological aspect of fashion stems from my own upbringing in a town in Scotland, being the only person of colour in school and social groups meant I was othered by default. Acknowledging history as an abiding presence in the setting of contemporary life has been a recurring theme within my work - looking to antiquated codes of dress and challenging the inhabited identity, I question how I could subvert socially normative expectations of ‘high’ fashion. I found liberation in toying with the notions of exoticism due to my own experience being subject to tokenism and orientalist prejudice.
What’s an aspect of the fashion industry that you’re passionate about fixing or having a positive impact on?
I believe that education is the starting point. What we learn informs the make-up of our understanding of the world. Just now I’d like to focus on educating myself and others about the industry’s past, and how this legacy is still consistent in the system today. In future I’d like to present an alternative idea of aspiration, as growing up I subconsciously understood success to mean being wealthy and white. I’d like to instil hope and creativity though my concept design work. In the words of Ben Okri, “Our future is greater than our past,”
What is your plan for the future?
I think this pandemic has taught me that nothing is for certain. I can only do the next right thing for me. I do of course dream of working for an influential fashion house someday, but just now I know it is a particularly difficult landscape for new designers. My next step is working as an Artist in Residence and building my portfolio up to earn a place on a passionate design team.