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She’s the creative director of a VANGUARD cover shoot. Her work has featured in magazines from House of Solo to KALTBLUT. Now, Lily Maguire can add assistant stylist for The Last Dinner Party (winners of BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2024) to her impressive resume. We caught up with the fearless Cambridge alumna to find out what it’s like to work on a music video, and how her time at �鶹Ƶ�� gave her the courage to disrupt the London creative scene.

Act 1: Creative Director

Q: How did you first get into styling?

LM: I started styling around the same time I began directing: in my first year studying BA History and Politics. During the COVID pandemic, I was so disillusioned and devoid of any sense of who I was in this new society where many belief systems had been shaken. I tried to turn uncertainty into an advantage, as a way to reinvent myself, because if so many of the things I’d known to be true could so easily disappear then surely, with enough confidence, I could claim to be whoever. This drove me to call up Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts (CSVPA) calling myself a ‘creative director’.

Q: What happened next?

LM: I had no idea what this title really meant, but a week later – armed with a Pinterest board and a shoot concept written in my iPhone notes – I was standing on top of Castle Mound, surrounded by a team of talented students, and gorgeous garments loaned by CSVPA. It was the best day of my first year, and such a pivotal moment that spurred me on to begin regularly creative directing shoots - initially for Varsity Newspaper whilst I was its Magazine Editor, and later for a creative collective I started in my Third Year called ‘DISRUPTION’.

Q: Can you tell us more about those early shoots?

LM: Each shoot consisted of zero budget, no professional lights, amateur creatives. We’d create stills through bouncing torches off tin foil, shooting through tubs of water, backdrops from cardboard suspended from the ceiling of dance studios… unconventional methods yet achieving dynamic, powerful photos. The insane creative potential of students was evident every time and so each shoot felt disruptive, crafting powerful moments between groups of individuals.

Q: What about DISRUPTION? What are your hopes for the collective?

LM: I have lots of ambitions for DISRUPTION, which I run with my friend Hamed. DISRUPTION came from this idea that there is an urgent need to democratise a creative industry that is often not welcoming to all. We sought to democratise production by enabling all students to pitch an idea that would be turned into a large-scale photoshoot, film or limited-edition magazine.

Q: From your very first shoot, you have defined yourself as a ‘creative director’. Did you have any doubts about using this title so early in your career?

LM: I think that creative individuals - whether this is writers, photographers, artists, stylists etc. - always feel they are making things up; facing insecurities and questioning their artform as the natural aftertaste of working in a highly unstable, competitive industry. I might as well use that sense of 'making things up' engrained in creative individuals to 'make up' my ideal job title!

Q: You allow self-belief, rather than external milestones, to set the pace and scope of your career. Where did you find the confidence to define your own creative identity?

LM: I think I had the confidence to call up CSVPA and call myself a creative director, without waiting for someone to give me 'permission' to call myself this title, for many different reasons. Just like many other people my age, the COVID pandemic had driven me crazy. From A Levels to daily ways of socialising - I’d seen all the structures and value systems I’d ever known and attached my identity strongly to, vanish. This made me crazy enough to try out everything and anything to discover who I now was. Secondly, I came from an all-girls secondary and sixth form, then joined Murray Edwards college. Following years of being raised in the light of strong inspiring women in my family, too, I felt empowered to imaginatively oversell myself because if men frequently apply for jobs they are really underqualified for, then why not?

Q: You mentioned Murray Edwards there – did the college play a part in your formative years as a creative?

LM: In terms of finding my creative identity whilst in Cambridge, I absolutely could not have explored who I was as a neurodivergent creative without the incredible support I had at �鶹Ƶ��; particularly from my Directors of Studies, Evaleila Pesaran and Lucy Delap. I was diagnosed with ADHD in my Third Year, yet I had always felt that Evaleila and Lucy completely embraced who I was: as a creative individual constantly doing projects outside my degree, and as a person who thought and worked differently to others. They were always so kind and supportive; without them I think I would have left Cambridge University a very different person, so I will always be really grateful and indebted to them!

Act 2: Stylist

Q: Let’s talk about styling as a profession - what events might require a stylist?

LM: The types of project I’ve booked range from editorial (for magazines), commercial (such as for an influencer or musician client), music video, to short film and so on. I predominantly style or creative direct for editorial - recently MOB Journal, Flanelle, VANGUARD, Contributor, F Word, House of Solo, KALTBLUT - likely because my aesthetic as a creative best lends itself to more abstract conceptual shoots.

Q: When you’re styling someone else’s concept, to what extent are you following direction, and what is left entirely up to you?

LM: As a stylist, I always want to work very collaboratively with the photographer. I attempt to understand their shoot concept through the visuals and concept narrative they send me, before I send back boards containing my styling interpretation. You have quite a lot of autonomy a lot of the time: photographers will often approve your moodboard of the kind of pieces you might bring, and then leave it up to you to bring a lot of different options to present on the day of shooting.

Q: How do you construct those options?

LM: I always pull looks and pieces from a range of sources - independent designers, couture houses, recent graduate designers, PR companies – so I can construct interesting and complex looks on the day, yet have many alternative options according to what the photographer thinks.

Q: Once you’ve planned out a look is your vision final, or can it change on set?

LM: I wouldn’t say my vision is final in the sense that I dictate what the looks must be regardless of what the artist or model thinks. I always want the individual wearing the clothes to feel comfortable, confident, or that they are cosplaying an artistically interesting alter-ego that brings out specific parts of their personality. In my opinion, this should always be a priority of the stylist when finalising looks in dialogue with the individual wearing the clothes.

Q: What is the most daring look you’ve created, and why did you choose to push boundaries in that particular way?

LM: This is such a hard question, but I think I would say my styling work for a recent editorial shot, themed ‘Supay’ – the leader of a race of demons in Incan mythology. The other team members are very talented and experienced so I was prompted by this, and by the fascinating theme, to push my styling into the realm of the bizarre and weird. I created strange silhouettes that were still captivating, pairing amazing pieces such as designer Eileen Sun’s demonic-esque ’Shapeshifter’ headpiece sculpture and Isabella Smith’s metallic spiked breastplate, with classically beautiful jewellery by Sondor for dissonance.

Act 3: The Last Dinner Party and beyond!

Q: You’ve hit some major career milestones this year, most recently working with The Last Dinner Party. Can you tell us about that?

LM: I was really lucky to work as a Fashion Assistant with the stylist Rubina Vita Marchiori for the amazing band The Last Dinner Party. Over the course of a week, the band were styled for a series of shoots and events: an NME Cover, MTV, Amazon Music and the Rolling Stone UK Awards. This was all a bit of a fever dream, being so lucky to work in spaces such as Universal Music and backstage at the Rolling Stone Awards at Roundhouse Camden - particularly as our dressing room was next door to Louis Tomlinson’s dressing room! I was incredibly lucky, and so grateful to Rubina for giving me the opportunity.

Q: That sounds incredible! What did your role entail?

LM: As it was an assisting role, I was mostly helping Rubina execute her styling vision; though myself and the other assistants were welcomed to give styling suggestions in terms of which combinations of pieces would work best together and for whom. It was so interesting to see the dynamic creative process behind a band realising their visual identity through dress, and to observe creatives - videographers, makeup artists, directors – at the top of their field, in operation.

Q: Is it true that you were on set for the band’s ‘Ceasar on a TV Screen’ music video?

LM: Yes, I also assisted for the band’s music video which was a really wonderful experience, as the sets for music video and film are definitely my favourite. It’s so fascinating to see the hard work of large teams coming together in one captivating moment to capture a powerful still. This music video was really exciting as Rubina had pulled lots of options from costume departments, which we combined with modern pieces to create hybrid looks that both spoke to the classical theme of the video, and the contemporary identity of the band. I would love to be involved in even more music videos!

Q: You’ve already achieved so much, but what are your ambitions for the future?

LM: Thank you so much, that is really kind of you to say! There is so much that I have to learn and boundary-breaking creatives that I will continue to be inspired by. I would really love to direct more short films, as my previous films are still some of my favourite projects.

Q: Can you give us a sneak preview of a project you’re working on at the moment?

LM: I am currently creative directing a project on 'ADHD,' inspired by my diagnosis last year. It is going to consist of 6 separate photoshoots, exploring themes such as overstimulation, executive dysfunction, mania etc. which I'll collate into a print magazine, possibly to raise money for the Crane's Charity which funds ADHD diagnoses in Cambridge. Then I hope to conceptualise a short film in response to this physical piece of work.

Quickfire Round!

Best shoot experience?

I remember the first day I met one of my friends who I’d asked to model at the ungodly hour of 5am for a photoshoot called ’The Modern Pre-Raphaelites'. A group of us stood in Robinson College’s Chapel with cameras in hand watching the golden hues of sunrise seep in through stained glass windows over her as Solange’s ‘Binz’ played.

Best response to one of your projects?

I remember a family member quietly telling me at a recent gathering that some of my relatives had watched the film, ‘Queerly beloved’ and it had made them rethink what it looked like to be ‘queer’.

Best on-set memory?

I remember a recent shoot, directed by students Manav and Mia through DISRUPTION, which explored the South Asian queer experience and ended with a group of students holding hands and resting upon each other’s shoulders in a beautifully emotive final still.

These memories are formative because this is when I became captivated by the disruptive potential of creating art through inclusive methods, using visuals to change how we perceive the world.