The Children Who Gave Their Town A Fashion Makeover

After a costume workshop at the Gellideg youth center in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, some of the girls who had taken pet braved the elements to parade the streets in their finery. 

It was soon after Halloween, November 2016 and the girls were dressed in black, in extravagant hats, with faces as pale as the moon. A few boys watching them broke into laughter which caused the girls to stop and shout “It’s called fashion, look it up!” 

This was when photographer Clémentine Schneidermann realized something magical was happening. She had organized the girls’ costume workshop with Charlotte James, a creative director. 

The photographs the two women took of the seminal outing launched a collaboration lasting nearly three years, between Schneidermann, James and the children from the youth center and the Coed Cae Interact club near Brynmawr. 

Now a selection of their photograph is to be exhibited in a collection entitled It’s Called Ffasiwn (Welsh for fashion), along with some of the costumes, at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol.

The women ran weekly workshops and even a summer school focusing on photography and styling and customization of second-hand clothing. 

Shots of the children in locals streets, working men’s clubs, bingo halls, and beaches. These setting are at odds with the outfits the children are wearing. 

“But we wanted to make (the work) colorful a step away from how children have been represented in this sort of post-industrial environment,” said Schneidermann.

In Schneidermann and James images, the streets of Merthyr and Brynmawr appear carnivalesque yet desolate, the children simultaneously attuned and alien to the landscape.

Keely Arthur, 10 said: “ Like I was walking on a catwalk!” Keely wore a Lilac trousers suit which was inspired by Kim Kardashian.

The experience has caused some of the girls to dress differently now and has helped give them more confidence to wear what they want.

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