‘Seeing how amazing they are blew me away’
◆ As Emma Willis turns her attention to young fashion designers in CBBC’S Style It Out, Jessica Rawnsley sits down with the presenter to find out more
Emma Willis is enthralled by the creative power of children – their lack of inhibition, their ingenuity, the way in which they express themselves so freely.
The broadcaster’s latest endeavour is all about spotlighting and championing this raw talent. Over 10 episodes, CBBC’S Style It Out will see nine fashionforward kids aged between 10 and 14 use innovation and imagination to create original sustainable designs, using vintage, second-hand and rescued materials. The winner will showcase their creations at London Fashion Week.
Seam Team professionals offer help where needed, while resident stylists Ayishat Akanbi and Jorge Antonio and a host of guest judges – including Gok Wan and Katya Jones – give expert advice and guidance.
Ahead of Style It Out airing on Wednesday, we sat down with Willis, previous host of The Voice and Big Brother, to hear more.
Why did you want to make this show?
EW: I wanted to do a creative show with kids where they are in a space where they can express their creative individuality and we can watch them thrive. Having three kids of my own, I’ve seen when they were younger, and with my youngest now, how they’ve got no blinkers on and they just express themselves in whatever way they want and wear whatever they want without fear of judgment or criticism. They’ve got such open minds to creativity, and I feel as they get a little bit older, that gets chiselled out of them very slowly.
So we wanted to bring together the best young people in the country that we could find and see the futures of fashion on the show, but also kids who were incredibly mindful of sustainability. How could we create a show that highlighted how talented kids are in ways that we might not always see every day or in school, while ensuring that young kids know how to be sustainable with clothes? So it was a two-pronged attack on fashion and sustainability.
How do you personally approach fashion and sustainability?
EW: It’s a bit of a minefield, isn’t it? I’ve tried to be mindful with how much I buy for a long time. And the older I get, I just wear the same things anyway. I never throw clothes away, whether that’s taking them to a charity shop or trying to pass them on to people. I took a load of stuff I had to an amazing charity that’s for women who are getting themselves back into society and they need to go on job interviews but they may not have the right clothing for it.
How did you find the kids who took part?
EW: The production company went to schools and local sewing groups and stuff
like that. My dream would be, if we get to do another series, that we can push it out to as many schools as possible because there are kids out there that don’t even know they are good at it. And it can open up a whole world of creativity and selfexpression. The only reason I think that is because I see them doing it now, and I wish I had been able to be creative in that way when I was a kid. We didn’t do things like that at school. I didn’t even know it was a career prospect.
Did their creativity inspire you?
EW: Being in the show and watching the kids and seeing how amazing they are at it blew me away. These aren’t just kids rocking up
going, ‘oh, yeah, I quite like wearing this, that and the other’. Like we’ve got one boy called Dexter, he had an old hammock in his garden shed, and he was like, ‘well, we can’t waste it’. And he made himself a pair of shorts, just went and rustled them up! He walks around in a flat cap and a little waistcoat and he has a measuring tape around his neck, and that’s all he’s ever known. He’s just always made clothes.
And I think it’s really inspirational. It certainly inspired me and that’s now my mission for 2024 – I want to learn how to use the sewing machine and actually be able to create something.
Were there any designs that particularly stood out?
EW: There’s quite a few of them. We had the most sensational cast, they’re so talented. And we wanted to reach as many creative kids as possible and we didn’t want to instil rules like having to be able to use a sewing machine, because being creative takes so many different forms. So we had those who can use a sewing machine and make their own clothes, kids who are the most phenomenal illustrators that I just couldn’t believe certain things had been drawn by 12-year-olds, and others who just had a vision of what they wanted to create.
Can you tell us about the celebrity judges?
EW: The kids loved it. We had a variety of people, all from a different skill set. Every week we have a guest judge and there’s a theme that they have to design their outfits to. So Katya Jones from Strictly came in for the dance theme week, who is massive on sustainability and makes her own clothes. Gok came in for the final, who is Mr all-roundfashion-knowledgeable icon. And his reaction was actually the best because he has been in the industry for such a long time, and when he saw what they created he was absolutely flabbergasted. He said: ‘Emma, I just can’t get over how talented they are, how open-minded and creative they are in their thinking.’