LIFEWTR asked HAPPYMONDAY to tell the story of designer Aurora James, creative director of Brother Vellies, and how she transforms sketches into accessories made in Africa.
More on HAPPYMONDAY
Paris Vogue Fashion Festival Coverage for Swarovski.
I've been completely focused on HAPPYMONDAY for the last few months. It's kept me busy and tired, inspired and completely thrilled about the direction things are heading in.
That's why it's quiet here on my site.
If you want to see most of the work I've been doing you can find it all on www.HAPPYMONDAY.studio
🤔 So, what is HAPPYMONDAY?
It's a company I just launched, a content studio that helps brands create great videos for social media. We work closely with brands and find innovative ways to think about content that helps amplify their story in an authentic and fun way. 🎥
Humai and I started this project together and it's been an incredible ride. We've been traveling and learning so much - creating content for incredible brands I only dreamed of working with.
It's been real and 2018 is looking even bigger with us kicking the year off creating videos during the Golden Globes and then at the Sundance Film Festival.
Going to try and share more here.
🌊
Paris makes me rethink my whole stance on
never wanting to move away from New York.
It's the only other city I've been to that has the kind of charm and swag that's inspiring and up lifting. Even gloomy, rainy days somehow feed into the romance of the landscape. I've really been feelin' it and I'm thrilled that I get to go there a bunch recently.
I work with Swarovski consistently and their Paris office often have activations and events that need content. They really understand the value video plays into them sharing their story with the world and our partnership is a true collaboration of ideas and vision which makes it even more fun to work with them.
This couture week they invited me to Paris to create a few really fun videos
- Backstage and runway of the Alexandre Vauthier show
- The Vogue Gala
- Schiaparelli runway show
- A private viewing of the Swarovski Atelier Fine Jewelry Collection
- Documentation of Swarovski's presence at the 70 Year Anniversary Exhibit at Les Arts Decoratifs
This was a crazy week of non stop work but each project was truly a wonderful experience that I feel blessed to have had.
I also was able to check out the Lourve and the Eiffel Tower up close for the first time, ate some of the best sandwiches I've ever had and kept on running into Bella Hadid - to the point where I think its awkward that she hasn't introduced herself to me yet.
It's fun...its always fun. And I hope I keep coming back here.
Humai and I have been traveling all over the world meeting incredible people and the best way we can think of sharing these experiences is through a Vlog. This particular series is for HYFN and will focus on stories of South Asians and Muslims in America. For our first episode we went to the middle of the Arizona desert where Humai shot a photo story with our friend Negine frolicking around the beautiful southwestern landscape.
It's important to continually be working on your craft. Just as athletes train all year around we creatives need to constantly train our eye, go hard when we practice and push ourselves to take creative risks. The purpose of the shoot Humai is doing with Nagine is to tell a story and catch a vibe but more importantly it's to practice photography. To be in a completely unfamiliar landscape creating images that evoke emotion and feel purposeful. To get better with each shoot and walk away having learned something. This is important.
And for myself this was an exercise in telling a story about a person and their day and also a chance for me to practice shooting with a drone (which is something we just added to our kit and fu*king love it). I'm constantly trying be better at storytelling and figuring out ways to create beautiful content that is engaging and fun to watch.
Hopefully we will continue to do this with some constancy and as always welcome your feedback and thoughts.
There isn't much to do in Milan and that's the reason not many people enjoy it but here why I like it: There is so much great architecture everywhere, its beautiful, so the city becomes a great backdrop to shoot street style on. All my Milan videos have a certain for feel to them for this reason.
The 2nd reason is because things slow down a bit once you get to Milan (if you're working all of fashion month) and it's a nice change of pace after London and New York. A break full of stuffing my face with pasta is much needed.
Right after we finished shooting New York Fashion Week, Humai and I hopped on a plane to London. We were scheduled to shoot a few shows for Swarovski and cover street style for HEED.
Shooting street style quickly became one of the things I love doing the most. There's a playful, game like challenge to it, and it's exciting running around in a foreign city searching for dope style. I'm hooked, hopefully I'll be doing a lot more of this.
Here are the two videos I shot while I was out there.
...next up Milan.
There are a lot of new people following my work so I'll start with a short intro.
I breathe and create in New York City, spending my days telling stories with visuals. I create bite-sized pieces of photo and video content to help brands engage with their audiences on social media. Lately I've been working a lot in the fashion space and over the last year have shot fashion weeks in NY, London, Milan, Paris, Tokyo and Berlin...it's been insane. I'll go more into detail on this whole journey in another post but that's all you need to know to be caught up.
This season started with New York Fashion Week and one of my projects was to create street style videos for @NYFW. I was hype, I love shooting these videos. even though we kicked the week off with a blizzard and had a few rainy days I still really loved the way these came together.
I'll continue to roll out content here and if you have any comments or questions feel free to contact me directly atifateeq@gmail.com.
If you're interested in seeing the videos that I'm currently working on please check out my Instagram, thats where I post in real time.