“Sometimes it can be quite intimidating, you always have to explain yourself and have an answer for everything, which disables me in a way because I feel like I’m fighting for a message rather than to simply create.”
Creating his collection in lockdown turned out to be more beneficial than he had anticipated. Working from his own little space he was able to escape from the tense and high-pressure environment of the studio. The tutors would also push him harder to better his work. “Sometimes it can be quite intimidating, you always have to explain yourself and have an answer for everything, which disables me in a way because I feel like I’m fighting for a message rather than to simply create,” he explains. When digital became the medium to showcase collections, the polaroid shots he took to capture the process of creating the collection became a part of his lookbook.
A few factors that he finds define his experience at RCA are the atmosphere of being around talented students and the ease of collaborating with different departments. “At first, I didn’t like collaborating, but I realised that when you find a good team and bounce ideas off of each other, the creativity elevates a lot more,” says Lee. It allowed him to work better on his job at the label J.E Cai, where he started working the day after he graduated. On the contrary, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for him throughout his days as a student. “Prepare to fail over and over again,” he says, “that would be my advice to myself,” he adds.