Checkout Magazine x C8Y8S

Full interview HERE

‘The 23-year-old designer is philosophical to say the least. But not so much eating grapes on a chaise longue and relaying musings to a scribe, think more hungover in bed, scrolling through social media and questioning the world around her. One of Yates’ recent collections was centred around real and wonderfully coarse images taken from Google Maps - an idea that was dreamt up whilst hungover and digging deep into the internet. “A lot of my research comes from scatty concepts. I’m not exactly one to go and refer to really old paintings. A lot of my stuff comes from memes or things I see on the internet. Facebook groups as well… I’m somehow in so many facebook groups. I’m in one that’s called ‘Aldi Mums’ and there’s so much drama the whole time. I love it.”

The emerging designer finds inspiration from the honest aspects of the world in real-time; her Google Maps collection was testament to that. But her commitment to telling things how they are and exposing the true nature of our societies is what drives her dedication to informing her audience through bringing morality and politics into her work. “My grad collection is a lot about the area I grew up in and I look at the male structure within that. I try to bring that into a modern context whilst still taking the piss and making it fashion,” she says. For the designer, her hometown can be summed up by David Beckham, Soho Farmhouse, and one of the highest child poverty rates in the country - something that she is desperate to draw attention to. “If I talk to anyone and say I’m from the Cotswolds, there’s this immediate thing of ‘you must be minted. You must have gone to private school.’ It’s just not true. I always like to make sure my projects has some form of charity based work within it. I’m hoping to work with a local charity and maybe do a capsule collection or something… It’s being able to use your platform for good.”.

Words by Ry Gavin