Pheobe English at LMFW

Soft Debris "1998" t-shirt

T-shirts are a blank canvas, and I’m continually drawn to them as a medium. I see presenting graphics on a plain black or white surface as a way to allow us to focus in on symbolism as it moves through the world, carried atop the human form.

I’m an archivist before anything else. I like to collect cultural artifacts from past decades, whether in digital platforms, my saved folder, Pinterest, or just in my mind. I see the creative brain as a filter and processor into which we feed information, defining our taste and interest as the output. And this input/output is at the core of everything I do, from creating t--shirts and other clothing that feature anachronistic iconography, to writing about design and art exhibitions, to making strange furniture with my hands; it’s all a representation of the complex creative-biome that has been cultivating in my mind.

When REESE reached out to collaborate on a shoot for Soft Debris, my clothing brand and newest project, it was an immediate yes. The energy of her photos, pulled from both 35mm and VHS video stills, capture the decade-less feeling I want for the brand, which references a handful of favorites pulled from my archives: everything from warped old desktop wallpapers to prehistoric symbols.

Soft Debris is technically very new (we launched last October), but if you were to tug it out of the ground and examine the roots, it has existed in one form or another for a long time. The project — so far simple digital and physical prints as well as hand-applied dyes and distressing — is focused on representing the images in my head, but physically, on the human body. Right now, I’m fascinated by a visual idea that I’ve been calling “techno-tarot”; the name came from something my friend and collaborator Juliyen said during a meeting. Techno-tarot is the primitive meeting the digital, the idea of applying ancient systems of iconography to create new symbols and semiotics. Early internet computer wallpapers, glowing orbs, bleached spirals, rough SVGs, AI-generated land art, logo variations, angel numbers in Times New Roman and more bleed together in this past-future, new-old assemblage that occupies the inside of my brain.

Soft Debris “Collage 3” t-shirt, GRIEVE skirt and M.G.L.O. Bag

The photoshoot was a new experience for me, as this whole project has been, stepping into the role to co-creative direct the shoot. I wanted it to feel less serious and less curated, allowing a story and the thoughts I can’t quite verbalize to me brought to life with a group of creative friends. Rodrigo, who I’d worked with for office’s Girl Ultra feature, and I talked through the styling, and decided to complement the collection with a few vintage pieces of my own and some by CDMX-based brands GRIEVE and M.G.L.O. Vanely, who I met through launching the brand at CDMX’s VENA, modeled with a fresh and straightforward energy, and my friend Tatsumi, a talented photographer and artist, stepped in to help with makeup.

We spent the day in Parque Chapultepec and Parque Lira, two city parks with very different atmospheres, taking in the environment. REESE had this image in her head: a young woman lost in a daydream who drifts between two opposite landscapes. This framework gave us a structure for styling the shoot, which reflected the constant undulation between dystopian and utopian directions I’m often drawn to in creating Soft Debris.

Soft Debris Late Night Logo Shirt

REESE’s style is simple and intuitive: a few directions, a firm eye, and an immediate sense of what she wants to see. At the very end of the day, she and Vanely jogged over to the skate park to shoot the end of the roll and ended up with my favorite shot. In the image, Vanely stands in the middle of the bowl, making eye contact with the camera as a skater flies toward the camera. The photo — a collage of symbolism — perfectly captures the energy I want to put into Soft Debris: a mirror for myself and the archive of my mind.

Soft Debris is a streetwear brand rooted in concept exploration and archival practice, materialized through found graphics and retrofuturistic symbology. The brand was founded in 2023 by David Eardley, creative director of design platform and creative studio Pink Essay. Soft Debris is available in-store at VENA  and softdebris.com.