In the latest exploration of Lacoste, the sportswear brand dives into sportswear that is both functional and fashion-focused. The new proposal is presented in the form of a colorful and pattern-laden summer line that reinvents classic sports silhouettes for our increasingly active day-to-day lives. But it begs the question: What defines an active lifestyle today?
Hypebae meets Nooriyah and Estefania, two London-based multi-screenwriters who enrich their respective communities in more ways than most. For Nooriyah, born in Bahrain, her active lifestyle involves working in the public health sector during the day. At night, she becomes a spearhead to bring the sounds of SWANA to the ears of clubbers and music lovers through her Middle of Nowhere platform.
Similarly, Estefanía leads a fast-paced life as a creative director and spends her free time advocating for more diversity in comedy. She hosts nights championing LGBTQ+, female, non-binary, and POC comedians simultaneously hosting her own Deathbed Confessions podcast. Estefania sits down with Nooriyah ahead of the Hypebae-shot campaign to talk about her inspirational sideline and important role in empowering emerging communities and active people like them.
Read Estefania and Nooriyah’s discussion below, and find out how they’re designing Lacoste’s newest collection for their busy lifestyles of non-stop empowering communities and inspiring change through the gallery above.
Lacoste’s Fashion Sport range is now available to buy online and at its global stores and partner retailers.
Stephanie: Nooriyah, what do you do day to day?
Nooriyah: For the last five or six years, I’ve been working in public health, which involves a lot of different things and people often have the wrong idea of what that could be, but since the pandemic, that particular phrase has been on the minds of people. . We focus on a population perspective, either promotion or intervention. My mom was a nurse and my sister was a doctor, that was definitely an inspiration. And you? What do you do as creative director?
ME: I do art and creative directing, and I think when you’re doing work that you love, obviously it doesn’t always feel like work, but it’s still so nice to have something else. I’m sure you can relate to that. Knowing that there is something else you could be doing that night that is completely different. It’s a really nice way to spend the day, especially in fashion where, as we know, it can get pretty intense. But your 9 to 5 job must get emotionally heavy. How does your love of music help you get through this?
NORTH: I feel that music lifts people up and they can choose music for their mood. Music requires a different energy, and I enjoy the difference between the energy I bring to public health and the energy that music and musical performance can have for people. I find that public health gives me that structure in the day, and then the music is ad hoc.
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ME: I know! When you’re gigging abroad, if you don’t have work to go back to or structure that week, especially if you know you’ll be working next weekend, it’s really nice to not be recovering from your previous gig and know you need to get back on your game. A for something completely different. In both disciplines it can lead to going to bed later and waking up later, so it’s nice to have that structure.
NORTH: Can you tell me what you do in comedy? I would love to know about everything.
ME: I do stand-up comedy and host different nights where we support LGBTQ+, women, non-binary and POC comedians. Starting out in comedy, there weren’t a lot of women, just a lot of white men. As the stereotype goes, when a bunch of men talk in a room they talk about similar things and women can’t be included in that. So it’s good to create a safe space where women can do their thing. If you expand the community, more people from different backgrounds will be able to watch the comedy. Any type of female or non-binary night out also makes women feel more comfortable because there is a lot of feeling left out in the arts. If people don’t look like you, it’s interesting to experience new perspectives.
NORTH: Do you feel like you got into comedy because of that, because it was geared towards men and you wanted to make that space for women?
ME: I grew up knowing that a lot of the famous people on TV who did comedy were men, and I thought that a lot of girls didn’t really care about comedy. Going to a late night comedy show in Soho is usually a stag party as the girls go dancing with friends. So I thought it would be great to create a community in nightlife that had nothing to do with masculinity. I know you also highlight an underrepresented group that is the MENA artist scene. Tell me a little why you defend them in your performances.
NORTH: I am one of the few SWANA DJs in the UK. There are not many of us, especially those of us who play sounds from there. I saw that there is a huge community that wanted to celebrate these sounds but didn’t have the space to make them, so I created Middle Of Nowhere, a platform that champions the sounds and DJs of the region. What I wanted to do with it was bring people together. As a community, our contribution to music goes back a long way, but we are still not represented. For me, it was important to stand up for this and little by little my mission is becoming a reality because I see myself and other people from SWANA represented. This year I’m playing Glastonbury, which is very important to play those sounds there. Soon you will also give a great concert at Camden Fringe, are you looking forward to it?
ME: Yes! I’m doing a show on June 18th in Hoxton called “Toxic Femininity” where I explore what it means to be a woman today. What we think it means, the ups and downs, and obviously it’s for whoever wants to come. It will be an amalgamation of all the stand ups I do, because often you can’t do a set that long, so I’ll do it several times during Camden Fringe to see how people react. I want to include a little bit of music, some dance, things that you wouldn’t normally see in the traditional standup scene.
NORTH: You also have your own podcast, Deathbed Confessions, which is a big part of your work outside of business hours.
ME: Yes, Deathbed Confessions is a factual podcast, it’s narrative in terms of the way it’s portrayed. It’s all history and fully verified, based on deathbed confessions from real people. It could be anything from what happened to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones to someone who admitted to killing Abraham Lincoln. The podcast reads like a novel, so it works well if you’re on the go.
I never thought I’d be a podcaster, but it’s never too late to try something new, be vulnerable and not worry about what other people will say. When you were putting your first song on Soundcloud, when people didn’t know you were a DJ, they were like, “do you do this?” Sometimes it can be really daunting to let someone know that you have another string on your bow.
NORTH: I’m still embarrassed! I started in radio six years ago and to this day I am embarrassed to share the work I do with my parents, because they have a very academic idea of me. What encourages you to keep making new material? Are there times when you feel like I don’t want to do this anymore? What gets you out of that feeling?
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ME: If you have a night that doesn’t go as planned, I just think, I’m a grown woman, why do I make myself feel like this? Then I remember that when it goes really well and you connect with people, it’s worth it. A big part of making your art is that there will be bad reviews, but the good reviews completely outweigh it. There are times when the push came from knowing that you did something difficult, hit a rough patch, and emerged victorious. It’s nice to challenge yourself sometimes.
NORTH: After six years of doing this, I keep reminding myself that I put in the time and honed my skills. I also give myself the grace of being able to experiment. It’s okay if I put in something that isn’t completely perfect. This is something that took years of practice and being kind to myself. It’s okay to explore and every time I make myself vulnerable I learn something new. You’re obviously paving the way for people who want to pursue a career in comedy full time. I’m interested to know what you hope to see in the future for comedy.
ME: I would love to see more rooms with people of color. There are still too many nights where everyone looks exactly the same. It would be nice if more people did comedy, or saw comedy as an interesting and cheap alternative to a night out. You don’t have to spend millions on a morning show, just watch a diverse lineup of comedians. You learn something from a night of laughter. It would be nice to see more nights and more community in London. What about you and the future of the music scene?
NORTH: My whole mission is to globalize the sounds of SWANA so that promoters can see how much demand there is for such sounds and people. I used to teach a class before the pandemic started, DJing for WOC, and not only would I like more women to learn, but I would like our space. There are many times when I have interactions with men where they think you don’t know what you’re doing. I just want there to be less of that!
ME: Also, with you doing this, it’s similar to comedy. It is not a box-ticking exercise to put a woman in a row. The lineup belongs to everyone, there are a lot of women in the lineup, they’re all from wherever they are. It’s not about someone else filling a quota.
Source: hypebae.com