Botis Seva photography ©Camilla Greenwell & Far From the Norm
For the Best of British issue of V63, the Aston Martin magazine, I met five British talents reshaping what it means to make something.
Botis Seva, the self-taught “bedroom dancer” from Dagenham whose BLKDOG won an Olivier, talks about how fatherhood has changed his work: “BLKDOG is so dark because I was hiding inside it. Ten years on, and being a father, I can’t hide anymore.”
Architect Jayden Ali designed V&A East’s Why We Make galleries alongside the museum’s youth collectives, drawing on the energy of East London’s high streets. “I’d hope young people recognise themselves and their lived existence in the spaces, and the power they already have in making space,” he says.
Steve O Smith, winner of the 2025 Karl Lagerfeld Prize, makes clothes to order, each one unique: “I think of the garments as drawings, and that is reflected in the way they exist: made-to-order, one of a kind, each slightly different from the other.”
Natsai Audrey Chieza of Faber Futures grows textile dyes from microbes fed on food waste. “That notion of provenance becomes a really important story, and helps us begin to understand a new way of thinking about what luxury might mean.”
At Brat and Mountain, Tomos Parry cooks over fire in pursuit of a Welsh cuisine. “If Welsh lobsters are in season and in abundance, then dishes must be written around them. You can’t create in a vacuum.”
Read the full piece in the Aston Martin magazine, V63