There is a creature that has existed since its host was about thirteen years old. She goes by Princess Pathojen: drag queen, performer, entity. When a spinal surgery left her with two metal rods from neck to back, her creator did what any self-respecting showrunner would: they refused to let the character die.
That’s the origin of the Pathojen Project, the London-based label-slash-collective that is arguably one of the more captivating things happening in independent fashion right now. Its founder (who goes by Shane in the interview setting) is a designer whose background cuts through drag, musical theatre, jazz hands, and fundamentally, an intrinsic political urgency.
The name, for the uninitiated, is not incidental. A pathogen, as we know it colloquially, is an infectious agent that spreads. That lateral movement is also a useful way into how Shane thinks about the show itself. The design work remains under Shane’s creative control, but bringing The Pathojen Project into physical form is deliberately collective: “it takes a village,” as Shane puts it. Producers Solana and Tommy, who between them have run a theatre company in Australia, ran and produced shows at London Fashion Week, and kept a TV series afloat, came together through “luck and friendship.” Without the team, Shane says, “the dresses would be sat staring at four walls.” That collaborative structure is something Shane wants to continue “until the end of time.”
It is easy to be skeptical of designers who say their work is collaborative. It is harder to be skeptical when the pamphlets at the show credit each person by name, when the models helped sew their own looks, when one of them, Lilith Morris, who opened the show, is described with the same reverence one may reserve for the actual clothes. “I couldn’t have imagined anyone else wearing those looks,” Shane continues. “They were so inspired by the girls’ personalities.” Hannah Chambers, who sewed part of her look, moved to London nine months ago and now works at Portobello Market, where, as Shane puts it, she “gets to see what the girls are buying.” y’Sohnt, who models and studies classical composition at Guildhall, is now scoring the next collection. Every colleague is a friend. Every friend is a collaborator.
Political anarchy or rage, or whatever term suits best, has been the underlying driving force for The Pathojen Project. Their debut collection drew from three historical periods simultaneously: 1890s Coney Island, 1920s Munich, and now. The clothes themselves read like artifacts of those overlapping eras: deep-red brocade separates cut into structured, padded silhouettes, worn with Elizabethan-style ruffled collars and jewel-toned Jewish wedding hats built from trim and found fabric. Tracking with Shane’s description of ‘collecting materials along the way’, nothing looks store bought. Rather, the pieces have the layered, hand-assembled quality of something built from a box of found objects. With denim jackets patchworked with velvet and moss-green fringe, or corsetry and draped tulle nodding to Coney Island’s boardwalk showgirls, the collection feels assembled as much as it feels designed.
More importantly, it was underpinned by a political position that is, as Shane acknowledges, not one you see articulated very often: proudly Jewish, anti-Zionist, queer, and unwilling to compromise on any of these standpoints. So, a manifesto was distributed at the door. After each look, came the full story behind it, posted on Instagram. The message was not hidden. “This is how I mean it. This is how you’re going to receive it.” And if someone just wanted to see a pretty dress and left satisfied? “That’s not for me to tell them they did wrong.”
The political current continues in the set up of the team. “Trans girls have always been my muse and my friends and the people I’ve always felt the most relatability around,” Shane says, before adding something more pointed: “We need to platform them as much as we can.” The debut show was personally funded on a shoestring budget and built through deep collaboration. Its manifesto made that structure explicit by foregrounding name recognition for the talent involved: if someone in the audience saw a walk, performance, or contribution they responded to, they should be able to identify the person behind it.
The second collection, arriving next year, pulls from a single Jewish parable, retold through what Shane describes as a modern queer lens. There is also, apparently, something planned for the show format itself that has not been done at a fashion show before. All we know is that y’Sohnt’s classical compositions will be involved, and that the senses will be fully occupied. “Be prepared to have your socks blown off,” is the closest thing to a preview on offer.
What Shane keeps returning to, unprompted, is the strangeness of the fashion industry’s relationship to performance. Why does the front row sit in silence, for example? “I want people to be applauding and cheering when they see something they like,” Shane says. “I come from the world of show-stopping. That’s inherent to me.” There is something wistful about how, an opera costume, stripped of its context, placed against a white background, would immediately read as editorial. The line between fashion and theatre may not be a line at all, just a habit of mind.
The Pathojen Project is, at its core, an argument against that habit. A collective that grew from one performer’s body being temporarily taken out of the game, and responded by expanding. A pathogen spreads, and we see it in the designs, in the show, and in the team.
Tommy Loveday was a show producer of the first Pathojen Project and is heading back for round 2 in the same role for the upcoming show in February. He created Stuck in a Lift to facilitate a holistic approach to creative’s, brand’s and fresh thinker’s PR & production needs, Stuck in a lift is a bespoke digital tool that streamlines the process of producing anything from a fashion show to an underground rave to a classical music event. He has also run a theatre company in Australia and has produced multiple LFW shows in the last 2 years.
Solana Talenti was a show producer of the first Pathojen project and is heading back for round 2 in the same role for the upcoming show in February. Outside of this world, she’s continuing her producing work through music and charity events, like co-running the ‘Recital Against Genocide’ series with composer and Pathojen muse y’Sohnt, and writing and developing her first tv show: The Way We Flow – a comedy about 8 young 20 something artists living, loving and clamouring for success in London.
Hannah Chambers is a model, an impeccable fashion communicator and already a muse to many despite only moving to the big city 9 months ago. In her time here she has modelled for Maybelline, Acne studios, Paulina Russo and Diesel, but more importantly, for the first Pathojen Project – she currently works in Luxury Vintage retail and due to her eye for Chicness, is helping with market research and development for the next Pathojen Project.
Ghaifè y’Sohnt-Nash is a Guyanese-British composer, multidisciplinary performance artist and model whose work focuses primarily on the interaction between the self and the world – often pertaining to (but almost never explicitly) colonialism, gender, ethnicity and other current yet personal topics. This realises itself through ritual displays, dance pieces, chamber works, piano solos and poetry. Alongside dance and performance, y’Sohnt is a life long pianist and, despite other artistic endeavours it remains her first language.
Shoot credits
Photographer: @__aplomb
Designer: @thepathojenproject
Producers: @misstalenti, @tommysaysclubhouse
Models: @fuckthatbitchhannahchambers, @ysohnt
BTS: @proseccopussi
Assistant: @veemoretti
The Pathojen Project Vol. 1 credits
Producers: @misstalenti, @tommysaysclubhouse, @nadiakarimeldin
Movement & motion: @yiling_zhao
Makeup: @conorjengland, @harribo.strmix
Graphic design: @oliverlukaspiers
Production & stage assistant: @aya.malala
Artist liaison & sound: @trashedbaby
Runway audio & live performance: @nymphie.mp3
Nails: @mamichinailz
Heads of dressing: @angrybirdeyebrows, @thefaolan
Afterparty musicians / DJs
@misslilithmorris
@xixiasinshe
@sissymisfitt
@dan.na.reyes
@desiludildo
Sponsors
Sponsor in-kind: @bluebella
Jewellery sponsor: @aurora.12270
