Through adopt­ing roles in the fields of cre­ative di­rec­tion, styling, pro­duc­tion and fash­ion mar­ket­ing, cre­ative Safia Ele­na Ali has quick­ly be­come a fa­mil­iar name on the lo­cal cre­ative scene. With the col­lab­o­ra­tion and sup­port of her long-time friend and cre­ative part­ner, Ele­na Mar­quez, “Safi­aE­le­na” was found­ed, fol­lowed by the in­tro­duc­tion of a joint, new per­spec­tive on Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty and fash­ion. A mul­ti­fac­eted in­di­vid­ual, Safia has a strong sci­ence back­ground as she holds a Bach­e­lor of Hu­man Bi­ol­o­gy, and en­joys ex­plor­ing the in­ter­sec­tion be­tween art, the hu­man psy­che and is­sues of self-ex­pres­sion with­in con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety. Her work has been fea­tured both in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and lo­cal­ly in pub­li­ca­tions in­clud­ing Elle Kaza­khstan, Pitch Fanzine, Caribbean Look­book and Fash­ion Fo­cus Mag­a­zine, as well as on in­flu­en­tial so­cial me­dia ac­counts such as @Black­ex­is­tence found­ed by Em­my award win­ning artist Speech. In ad­di­tion to pur­su­ing two Mas­ters de­grees, Safia is cur­rent­ly fo­cus­ing her free time on cre­ative projects cen­tred around the fe­male per­spec­tive and hu­man iden­ti­ty through Safi­aE­le­na and the New Haven Col­lec­tive. This is what she shared with WE Mag in an in­ter­view.

Photo: Marlon James Creative Direction & Styling: Ian “Cylenz” Lee and Safia Elena Ali

Marlon James

What are you all work­ing on at present, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

I’ve part­nered with two of my friends and fel­low cre­atives, Mar­lon James (a BOSS pho­tog­ra­ph­er) and Ian “Cylenz” Lee (an amaz­ing cre­ative di­rec­tor, styl­ist and mu­sic pro­duc­er), to found “New Haven Col­lec­tive”. Our aim at New Haven is to use artis­tic ex­pres­sion to cre­ate and es­tab­lish more pos­i­tive forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and en­gage­ment that pro­mote mes­sages of equal­i­ty, di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­sion for all, a con­cept that we are tru­ly pas­sion­ate about. We’re cur­rent­ly work­ing on our first project as a col­lec­tive, a pho­to se­ries and in­ter­ac­tive ex­hi­bi­tion en­ti­tled ‘Mag­net­ic Sin’, which fo­cus­es on the strength of women as they con­front is­sues of gen­der equal­i­ty in their day to day lives. I’m be­yond ex­cit­ed for us to share this body of work be­cause I think that it is im­por­tant for us as women to ques­tion the in­flu­ence that so­ci­ety had on shap­ing our per­cep­tions of our­selves.

What are some of your trea­sured mile­stones thus far?

I went through a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od last year where­by I felt the need to in­cor­po­rate more di­a­logue in my work. Up un­til that point, it was just about putting to­geth­er a cool look and tak­ing a cool pic­ture. I felt as though I wasn’t putting my cre­ative pow­ers to good use, so to speak. I be­lieve that art rep­re­sents a unique way to con­nect to peo­ple and to share thoughts and ideas, and more so, to pro­mote dis­cus­sion. Recog­nis­ing the com­mu­nica­tive pow­er of art has in­spired me to pur­sue projects that feel more in­ten­tion­al and align with my own ques­tions and con­cerns about life and so­ci­ety in the present time. I now feel more re­spon­si­ble for the work that I pro­duce and put out there. As an in­di­vid­ual and artist, I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ed in hu­man iden­ti­ty: who we see our­selves as ver­sus who we want to be seen as, who oth­er peo­ple think we are and who we ac­tu­al­ly are - which is most im­por­tant.

Find­ing ways to use the tools that I love (cre­ative di­rec­tion and styling) to cre­ate some­thing that can po­ten­tial­ly con­nect to and en­gage with peo­ple on a deep­er lev­el than sim­ply “this out­fit is re­al­ly cool”, ig­nites a fire with­in me. Now it’s less about do­ing some­thing cool; I want my work to help peo­ple peel back their lay­ers in or­der to recog­nise and em­brace the deep­er parts of them­selves. Com­ing to this re­al­i­sa­tion and learn­ing how to em­brace this shift in per­spec­tive has been the sin­gle largest and most trea­sured mile­stone of my cre­ative ca­reer.

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture as a team?

Nowa­days, there’s a great num­ber of young peo­ple who are in­ter­est­ed in cre­ative fields and I think that’s so ex­cit­ing! In the near fu­ture I hope that Safi­aE­le­na can col­lab­o­rate with oth­er lo­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions and cre­atives to or­gan­ise events that will pro­vide sup­port and in­sight to those cu­ri­ous about pur­su­ing cre­ative ven­tures. It takes a lot of courage, dis­ci­pline and hard work to be a cre­ative pro­fes­sion­al, so I think that any guid­ance that can be passed along to up-and-com­ing gen­er­a­tions will prove to be in­valu­able.

With re­spect to New Haven Col­lec­tive, we hope that our art will pro­mote con­ver­sa­tion sur­round­ing ma­jor hu­man­i­tar­i­an and so­ci­etal is­sues, and be­cause art is open to in­ter­pre­ta­tion, we look for­ward to the emer­gence of new per­spec­tives on those is­sues that can pave the way for po­ten­tial so­lu­tions. We al­so hope that peo­ple can recog­nise them­selves in our work; we hope that it will fos­ter an at­ti­tude of em­pa­thy that will have a pos­i­tive ef­fect on the way that peo­ple in­ter­act with them­selves and with oth­ers as well, so that re­al change can be­gin from these sim­ple day to day in­ter­ac­tions and sin­cere un­der­stand­ing.

Eunoia by Safia Elena Ali & Elena Marquez Photographer: Marlon James Models (left to right): Genesia, Emma, Anna, Asia, Gesiye, Afiya Clothing: Kaleen Sanois (Brand: Kalois) Makeup: Krystle Mahabir Hair: Rejanne Lockhart

Marlon James

Why do you do what you do?

Un­de­ni­ably, the way that a per­son presents him­self/her­self to the world through his/her ap­pear­ance, in­flu­ences oth­ers’ per­cep­tions of him/her. I think be­cause of this, many peo­ple don’t ful­ly ex­press them­selves through their style. They end up dress­ing to be per­ceived in a par­tic­u­lar way that they hope oth­ers will find ac­cept­able in­stead of dress­ing in a way that feels most au­then­tic (to who they re­al­ly are). This is why some­thing as sim­ple as dress­ing for your­self and dis­cov­er­ing your sense of style can be ex­treme­ly em­pow­er­ing. Ex­press­ing your­self through the way that you dress can al­low you to feel more con­fi­dent in your own skin not on­ly on an ex­te­ri­or lev­el, but on an in­te­ri­or lev­el. I do what I do be­cause I want my work to in­spire and en­cour­age oth­ers to be fear­less about who they are and ex­press that ver­sion of them­selves freely through their sense of style.

Do you have any ad­vice for young women who may want to be­come a styl­ist lo­cal­ly?

I’ll say it like this: there’s on­ly one you on the plan­et and no one else can you do bet­ter than you. There’s a rea­son that you are you! Who cares if it’s “weird” or “dif­fer­ent” or goes against the grain; that will be­come your biggest strength, your sig­na­ture, the thing that sets you apart from the crowd. Ex­press­ing your in­nate unique­ness and in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty will con­nect you to the right peo­ple and the right op­por­tu­ni­ties for you. It will al­low you to forge your own path in the light as op­posed to walk­ing some­one else’s path in their shad­ow. So my ad­vice is quite sim­ple: em­brace ALL that you are and chan­nel it in­to your cre­ative work and styling, and you will pro­duce a body of work that not on­ly speaks for it­self, but speaks to your strengths and unique per­spec­tive as a mem­ber of the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty. That is how you will find suc­cess in your cre­ativ­i­ty.