DIRECTOR, DESIGNER & STYLIST Maximilian Raynor
CREATIVE DIRECTION & PHOTOGRAPHY Shenell Wellington
PROJECT PRODUCERS Tillman Ray at OnePlatz & Felix Allen at PurpleButton
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS Enys Obeng, Thomas Braniff & Sam Hurford
CASTING DIRECTOR Keala Rodwell
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT Allegresse Muya
MAXIMILIAN’S STYLING TEAM Chia Dower, Suki da Silva, Katarína Bottková & Margarita Beloglazova
HAIR Rossino Elia-Griffin
MUA Phoebe Walters
SET DESIGNER Ares Karagiannis
LIGHTING TECHNICIANS Niamh Sutton, Daniel Keys & Glen Jamieson
MODELS Nonoka at First Models, Geu at X Direction and Maxymilian & Josephina at Models 1
ALL LOOKS Maximilian Raynor AW26, in collaboration with Gola Classics
It’s no secret that the fashion industry is hard to break into. While the same handful of names shuffle around the top houses, young creatives are struggling more than ever before to secure funding, new opportunities, or even an entry-level role. That’s why, just weeks before his AW26 runway Post Me Your Last Kiss, British designer Maximilian Raynor teamed up with production company OnePlatz’ Tillman Ray, PurpleButton Productions’ Felix Allen, and BRICKS to platform emerging talent in a brand-new photography competition. The prize? One lucky winner would get the chance to shoot his new collection in an exclusive print editorial for BRICKS – and to sit front row at his fashion show, ofc.
Raynor, himself, launched his eponymous label just two years ago, so he knows the stakes at hand. “As someone who arrived in London with no contacts and no access to the industry, I really had to pave my own path towards building a brand,” he says, laughing in disbelief at the starting roles that require years of experience from industry newcomers.
As someone who arrived in London with no contacts and no access to the industry, I really had to pave my own path towards building a brand.
Maximilian Raynor
In his own entry onto the fashion scene, it was a call-out as a “name to watch” by Perfect Magazine that spiralled into a project withTommy Hilfiger, plus a long-standing mentorship with fashion collector Steven Philip, which helped take him from unknown newcomer to award-winning designer – not to mention one with names like Lady Gaga, Chappell Roan, and Precious Lee gathering up to wear his subversive designs. “Once you’re in, you’re in, but you need that first opportunity, which is often the hardest,” Raynor told BRICKS back in 2023.
So to no surprise, when Ray and Allen proposed their plans for the contest, the designer was all-in. “[They] approached me with the idea of how to democratise access to opportunities, essentially,” he explains, sharing his eagerness to pay forward some of the accessibility that boosted his own career. After looping in BRICKS for support, they drew out a plan.
“I wanted the [competition] to follow the whole journey – from shortlist to shoot to final selects, then bringing it all together through an exhibition of the final images and announcing the winner,” says Ray, who initially dreamed up the contest based on his experience meeting young photographers backstage while hosting fashion week shows with his company. “It’s fun [and] a bit chaotic, but it actually gives photographers real exposure while creating authentic physical and digital assets for the brand.”
I wanted the [competition] to follow the whole journey – from shortlist to shoot to final selects, then bringing it all together through an exhibition of the final images and announcing the winner.
Tillman Ray, OnePlatz founder
Meanwhile – with his AW26 show only month away – Raynor created a limited-edition, pre-runway t-shirt featuring a “lovers’ kiss” artwork by Jamie Kirkwood that shortlisted applicants would have 48 hours to ideate into a creative theme and shoot. From there, they would choose just one shot as their final entry. Then, these images would be showcased in an exhibition in London, where we’d crown the winner. With the plans in motion, the group set the competition live across socials, drawing in over 50 worldwide entries in just one weekend alone.
Behind the scenes, the team spent two days combing through the application forms – narrowing down the entries to a group of six finalists: Simon Pella, Dali Ughetto, Laura Braithwaite, Jivan West, Noam Oster, and Shenell Wellington. “As part of the entry process, contestants were asked to submit a 60-second video explaining what they would do if they were selected,” says Allen. “They had a very small initial brief, yet ideas from a woman in a full knight’s armour to the scene of a breakup frozen in time were incredible to [see].”
In the end, guests and finalists crowded into Shoreditch’s Pure Evil Gallery, sipping cans of BadWater Tequila cocktails while celebrating and commending the work. Meanwhile – after deliberating with photographer Jonathan Daniel Pryce and BRICKS Creator Tori West – Raynor called out the winner: Shenell Wellington, a fashion photographer and film director from Jamaica, born and raised in East London. “It’s a big deal to be a Black girl and do this!” Wellington tells BRICKS. “Being a Black girl who funds everything herself, non-stop working I do in my day-to-day… I just felt proud and seen. Like really, I did that! I opened up a door for myself.”
For her 48-hour entry, the photographer shot a model in the AW26 t-shirt, holding a bouquet of roses and an exploding sparkler with a big smile – a nod to Raynor’s collection, which paid tribute to a recent breakup by imagining a heartbroken muse wandering London throughout different eras in time. “I think Shenell managed to capture that balance of contemporary and fantasy in her final image,” says the designer, who noted how he could imagine the photograph on the pages of a magazine. “At the same time, with the flowers and the flame and the smile, there was that sense of fun and play which I’m always interested in.”
Being a Black girl who funds everything herself, non-stop working I do in my day-to-day… I just felt proud and seen. Like really, I did that! I opened up a door for myself.
Shenell Wellington
Fast forward a few weeks, and Wellington was behind the camera in the studio, injecting the collection’s sweeping Victorian-era gowns, crumpled paper sets, and custom-made Gola Classics trainers with the same joy as her initial entry. “The [photo] that stood out to me was Geu holding the large red heart balloon with the silver balloons dropping in the background,” she says. “Like, oh my god, amazing… I love my brain!”
According to Raynor, the final result was just how he had imagined it. “She really proved herself on that shoot and that we’d made the right decision because the final editorial is sophisticated yet fun, which is exactly what I’d wanted to achieve,” he says. For both Shenell and the other applicants, the designer shares advice for how to keep moving their career forward: reaching out to those you admire for advice; finding ways to keep making work and ideas without overthinking it; and keeping an eye out for opportunities via Instagram stories (that’s where this one started, after all!).
As for Wellington’s next steps? Alongside hopes to continue freelance photography and directing fashion films, Shenell tells BRICKS: “It’s in writing, so it’s been manifested. I’d want to work on campaigns and more shoots… secretly hoping for a front cover.” Wrapping up the competition, the BRICKS team crossed that one off her list, too.
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