Jonathan Blake and Lou Stoppard

Jonathan Blake is an actor, costume designer and activist. Blake trained at Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance, London (1967-1970), and worked as an actor for over a decade. He later trained as a tailor at the London College of Fashion (1984–1987), working as a tailor and costume maker for the English National Opera (1988–1996) before he was medically retired. Since then, he has volunteered with various HIV drop-in centres, including The Landmark in Brixton / Tulse Hill; Lighthouse South London; The Food Chain; and the Terrence Higgins Trust, where he was the face of the Trust’s first safer–sex poster campaign aimed at gay men. He recently returned to performing, taking the role of Barney in Patrick Cash’s HIV Monologues from 2016-2018.

Lou Stoppard is a writer, curator and broadcaster with an interest in how fashion garments and images communicate broader aspects of society, politics and culture. She served as Editor of fashion platform SHOWstudio for seven years, working closely alongside Nick Knight. She is a Contributing Editor at GQ and writes regularly for titles including The Financial Times and various international issues of Vogue. She has curated a variety of photography and fashion exhibitions, including, most recently, North: Fashioning Identity, an exploration of visual representations of the North of England, at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool and Somerset House in London. Her first book, Fashion Together, an exploration of collaboration in fashion, was published by Rizzoli in 2017.

Francis Ware