I also enjoy playing with the complexity of feelings about being a woman and clinging onto my own youth nostalgia, having my own personal identity split: being in charge, being responsible, being a girl and being on the outside. I like to pull a collection together that covers a cross-section of feelings, with a mix of clothing that is going to make you feel like you are that boss bitch, that female frontwoman, and also play with quite masculine pieces reappropriated that have that G.E.M twist. How do these values channel into the collections? I have been inspired by powerful women that have not prescribed to the norm. I come from a background of having to fight, get knocked down to get back up again and work triply hard to get where I am. It’s also hard to pin-point your niche – broken down it feels like another feminist marketing line, but for me, this is real. Maybe it’s the Sasha Fierce to my Lazy Oaf.ĭid you feel like a brand inspired by ‘girlhood and guts’ was missing from womenswear right now?
The G.E.M label started out as a place for me to push and create a collection that has become more personal to me a label that affords me the opportunity to put in more of the weirder ideas, be a little bit more experimental, more premium and unleash my creativity in other ways.
#LADY GANG LAZY GANG FULL#
The business has evolved into a full fashion brand with global distribution, a huge social following, two London stores and a studio space that is bursting full of people. I come from a printed textile background – I started printing my designs onto T-shirts and selling them from an east London market stall at a time when The Spice Girls were probably still together. Hi Gemma! Can you tell us a bit about you, your design background and why you started G.E.M? In line with the release yesterday, we spoke with Gemma about her inspirations and hopes for the collection, and exactly how fierce she wants us to feel whilst wearing it. In other words, the kind of pieces that make you take up space.įronting the campaign are Charli XCX-backed punk-pop group Nasty Cherry, a band who embody the G.E.M values with every song they shout and the girl gang we could only dream of joining. Lazy Oaf’s sister label G.E.M is her avenue for doing so, providing an avenue for the designer to experiment, create freely and celebrate ‘girlhood and guts’.ĪW19 is a statement against all things bland and pliant: there’s a heady dose of audacious leopard print and plaid, a reclamation of barbie pink and flashes of neon green held together by strong, classic silhouettes. Lazy Oaf founder Gemma Shiel (affectionately known as Mr Gemma Boss Lady) is taking the kind of loud, unapologetic approach to life championed by her favourite punk bands and translating it into clothing.