Chloe Johnson contextualises the history of slavery through design

At the core of this, creative production, theory and extensive hours of research allow every project she conceives to be consistently relevant and intertwined with the past. Allying simplicity with technicality, Chloe’s designs are an attempt to mimic the processes the enslaved used to create their clothes. Manipulating textiles and dyes to recreate fabrics closely resembling those from historical contexts, she transcends generations to create contemporary silhouettes inspired by the past and embedded with meaning. Each garment is a base, a blank canvas, that can be modified, from their colour to the placement of a pocket. With this adaptability she investigates notions of individuality and community shaped by shared history.

“I wanted to explore the history of clothes as a symbol of individuality and as a tool to repress and punish.” –  Chloe Johnson

Fabric weights filled with cane sugar complement the garments as an adornment and a metaphor of the weight enslaved people had to carry. “I wanted to explore the history of clothes as a symbol of individuality and as a tool to repress and punish.” With her exploration of fabrics and forms, not only through an aesthetical aspect but also through a historical one, her designs are a reflection on the dark past of clothes and the profound meaning they hold through history and for the black community.

“I learned so much very quickly and I got a lot of responsibility in design which I feel like I would not have got if I had waited out and worked at a bigger fashion house. I was able to run up the ladder in commercial design as opposed to crawling in higher design.” – Chloe Johnson

Fashion is an indivisible part from her history, but it only represents a small portion of her multifaceted body of works. After graduating in menswear fashion design from Middlesex University in 2015, she went on to work in the fashion industry for eight years. She acknowledges how formative these years were: “I learned so much very quickly and I got a lot of responsibility in design which I feel like I would not have got if I had waited out and worked at a bigger fashion house. I was able to run up the ladder in commercial fashion design as opposed to crawling in higher design.”

In 2019, the sudden loss of her mother right before the pandemic was a catalyst event in her creative journey. She was the one who introduced her to fashion, one of her main inspirations and the link to her Jamaican roots. Stuck between her home and her job, her world became much smaller, and it forced her onto a journey of deep reflection on her origins and the way she dealt with grief. She realised that fashion wasn’t enough for her anymore and that she needed a new impulse to find different forms of creative expression.

“The tutors push you to think about the mark you will leave on the world as opposed to what physical object you want to leave. What are you trying to change in the world and in the people?” – Chloe Johnson

Chloe moved to London two years later to start her master’s degree in fashion at the Royal College of Art, thinking she would hone her skills in design and tailoring, but ended up on an introspective journey. Still inspired by history and the Black experience, the designer started experimenting with different materiality through sculpting, jewellery making, wood carving and metal working. Lost at first, the structure of her programme allowed her to explore every aspect of her creativity. She is very grateful that although her course was fashion-based, she was encouraged to reconsider the boundaries of the practice. “The tutors push you to think about the mark you will leave on the world as opposed to what physical object you want to leave. What are you trying to change in the world and in the people?” Embracing this diversity and not being scared of putting herself in uncomfortable positions, Chloe now knows that these challenges made her projects better.

Following the completion of her graduate collection in 2023, she decided to put her fashion practice on hold – recognizing that the full depth of her projects couldn’t be fully encapsulated through the production of clothes. She knows that she will eventually go back to this practice but feels the need to delve deeper into fine art to fulfil her recent creative momentum. In this vein, one of her most recent projects explores her interest in the bodily senses and especially the use of smell in art; exploring the universal aspect of smell and how it has the ability to emulate experiences and transmit feelings without any physicality.

Chloe’s work has a humanist scope that allows to easily touch people. She hopes her projects will eventually be accessible to wider audiences and will bring what she thinks we nowadays lack as a society: empathy and the desire to care for people.