Go behind the scenes of The Tour ‘23 to meet the creatives who brought it all to life.
Of course, the models in the special are the most well-known but there are so many creatives working their magic off stage. For The Tour ’23 those trailblazers bringing these fantastical visions to life for us came from each of the four cities featured: London, Lagos, Bogota, and Tokyo. Here, get to know them a little better.
BOGOTÁ
CRISTINA SANCHEZ SALAMANCA
A Bogota-born-and-based filmmaker and screenwriter, Sanchez Salamanca derives a lot of inspiration from the “dark, intense, and dramatic city” she calls home. A graduate of Barcelona’s ESAC, she has worked on shows and films for Netflix, Disney and The Discovery Channel. BEBE, her short film about a young girl on the precipice of puberty premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. She is currently at work on her first feature film.
What’s your go-to karaoke song?
“Mis ojos lloran por ti.”
What is your motto?
Tomorrow I’ll worry about tomorrow.
When and where are you happiest?
When I’m working on something I love with people I admire.
What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
Eight years ago, my stepmother’s dog had puppies and I was fortunate enough to be given the runt of the litter. We’ve been soul mates ever since.
What are three things you can’t live without?
My phone, my passport and silence.
What’s the meal you would eat over and over again?
My grandmother’s Lebanese banquets.
If you could share a meal with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?
My grandmothers when they were my age. Or Richard D. James. Ideally all three.
What’s your most-used emoji?
🤝
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
Wear sunscreen.
What’s a book or tv show or podcast that you have loved recently?
Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez.
Who is your style icon?
David Bowie.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
Traveled by myself for a month to the other side of the world.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A tennis player or a skater. Failed at both.
What’s the last concert you went to?
Idles!!!
GOYO
Afro-Colombian singer songwriter and rapper Gloria Martinez got her stage name from “Goyito Sabater” by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, an album she discovered in her father’s extensive record collection. Growing up, it was those records and her mother and five aunts that instilled in her a deep love and appreciation of music. She formed ChocQuibTown in 2004 and the band would release six studio albums, win two Latin Grammys and be nominated twice for Grammys. In 2020 Goyo would create the Conciencia Collective, a grassroots alliance of Latin artists, and also be named one of the leading ladies of entertainment by the Latin Grammy Academy, and, last year she released her debut studio album: En Letra de Otro.
LORENA TORRES
Though painter Lorena Torres is a longtime Bogota resident, it’s the coast, specifically her hometown of Barranquilla on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, that continues to dominate her mood boards. A recent recipient of the Last Resort Artist Retreat Residency Prize, Torres’s large-scale paintings that recall in part the magical realism of writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, have been exhibited at SGR Galeria in Bogota, Miami’s Untitled Art Fair, and Thierry Goldberg in New York.
PIISCIIS
For the dancer, choreographer and trans activist Piisciis, movement, and specifically Voguing, is not only a form of expression; it’s a form of protest. Something that, in Colombia, the second most dangerous country in South America for queer and trans people, happens with increasing frequency. Piisciis, who was schooled in the fine art of Voguing by three of the form’s masters—Archie Burnett, grandfather of the Ninja house; Leiomy Maldonado, and Lasseindra Ninja—now also teaches throughout Colombia and other Latin American countries. Her goal, with her choreography and her activism, is to push back against patriarchal, transphobic and homophobic conventions with beauty and joy.
What’s your go-to karaoke song or most played song on Spotify?
“Superman” by Black Coffee and “Solo Quiero” by Pedrina.
What is your motto?
Do it with love.
When and where are you happiest?
When I am in nature or making art.
What are three things you can’t live without?
Cold water, music and incense.
What’s the meal you would eat over and over again?
Any type of rice and potatoes.
If you could share a meal with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?
Beyoncé, Dead Jesus, Nikola Tesla or Jiddu Krishnamurti.
What’s your most-used emoji?
🤍✨🙏
What’s your dream destination?
Cambodia, Dubai and Iceland.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
The person who judges you always shows you their deepest wounds and fears.
What’s a book or tv show or podcast that you have loved recently?
The book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and the TV show Impact with Gal Gadot.
Who is your style icon?
Coco Chanel and Donatella Versace.
Who is your celebrity crush?
Michel B. Jordan.
What piece of clothing do you wear more than anything else?
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
Living in the Amazon for a few months.
Heels, flats or sneakers?
Heels forever and ever.
What makes you laugh?
Kitten vids, I love it!
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A famous cinema actress.
What’s the most used app on your phone?
Instagram and Spotify.
What’s the last concert you went to?
Rhye, and it was so beautiful and magical.
LONDON
EBUN SODIPO
Interdisciplinary artist and writer Sodipo is determined with her work to give others, especially fellow members of the Black trans community, a glimpse of a kind of beauty that she had no lens on as a kid growing up in a Pentecostal Christian Nigerian home. Sodipo’s work, which has been exhibited at The Tate, the ICA, and Frieze, among others, digs into gender identity, and historical narratives and perspectives on marginalized bodies.
MARGOT BOWMAN
London-born and raised filmmaker Margot Bowman credits her home city for instilling in her a sense of creative freedom and possibility and a value of community. Bowman has been intentional about using her chosen medium to tell stories that explore identity in a way that strikes a singular visual note. Her work includes documentaries, music videos, and both commercial and narrative films for everyone from Nike to Dazed and The Tate. Bowman’s 2022 documentary short Coming Home was recognized by this year’s IDA Documentary Awards and will be featured as part of the 35th season of PBS’s POV series.
MICHAELA STARK
The female body—often, her own—is multidisciplinary artist and lingerie designer Michaela Stark’s ideal canvas. Born in Australia, Stark has long been using both fashion (she’s known for her custom lingerie pieces) and art to explore, radicalize, and push the boundaries of convention with how we view and clothe the female form, questioning what have been conventionally deemed as imperfections. Stark had her first solo exhibition in Paris in 2021 and was part of Photo London at Somerset House last year and has collaborated with everyone from Jean Paul Gaultier to Solve Sunsdsbo to Beyonce.
What makes you laugh?
There is so much humor to be had in fashion; it’s actually quite a ridiculous industry. We all work so, so hard in this industry, and the hours are often thankless, unseen and exhausting. If I weren’t laughing every step of the way, and recognizing that at the end of the day, we are all just here playing dress up, I honestly don’t know if I could survive it. Humor is so powerful, because it allows me to feel very free and liberated in my body and work, which helps me to let go of the limiting structures placed on women’s bodies by society and the industry as a whole, and instead just enjoy the freedom of creating art.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An actress! People like Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan were my idols. My dreams were based in reality though: I remember being about 5 or 6 years old and saying that I hoped to be a famous actress but secretly a waitress on the side so I could still pay the rent.
What’s the last concert you went to?
I haven’t been to a major concert since the Beyonce On The Run II tour! I’ve always been a massive Beyonce fan, and this tour was very special as I was working as part of the styling team, so I was able to see the behind the scenes, as well as having tickets each night. It was the first time I was ever a part of something so major, so global, and so culture defining. That night, they released the Apesh*t video at the concert, and the outfits I had made were finally shown to the world. I felt very proud, emotional, and inspired. I think no matter where my career takes me, that moment will always remain one of the most special of my life.
When and where are you happiest?
I honestly don’t know whether it’s the adrenaline rush that I have while on set while creating and collaborating—or if it’s the complete opposite, in the quiet and still of the countryside, slowly hand stitching, listening to music, completely alone and surrounded by nature.
So, I guess you could say I am happiest when I’m making beautiful things, in my element, with noise of the outside world drowned out, whether that’s in the bubble of a closed set, in my studio, or alone in nature.
What’s the meal you would eat over and over again?
Pizza pasta pizza! I am 1/8th Italian, and since I was little I have always said that the part of me that is Italian is my stomach, haha.
What’s your most-used emoji?
🎀🎂💗😂
What are three things you can’t live without?
A sewing machine, a mirror, and my bed! That’s all I really need in life.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
Stay focused on your own lane without worrying too much about what other people are doing. This is advice from my late grandfather that I have kept close to my heart. It’s easy to think that other people have all the right answers and you don’t. The truth is, everybody is just figuring it out. Every time I get insecure, I remember this advice. It really helps me to break free from pack mentality, think independently, and work towards my own personal goals.
What’s one thing people don’t know about you?
Sewing, design, or anything to do with fashion was not a talent that I was born with. I always loved it but honestly when I started university, I was not good. In my first year, I got very low grades and created very ugly pieces, despite the intense long hours I worked and the immense effort I put into it. It took about 4 years of working quietly every day; not only creating in the studio but also in the library studying fashion history and theory, to learn and understand the craft, and to form an interesting perspective. I’ve been teaching myself every day since I was 15; I guess I just love it too much to accept defeat!
PHOEBE COLLINGS-JAMES
British-Jamaican multidisciplinary artist Phoebe Collings-James was already on her artistic path by age six. Identity, and the multiplicity and complexity of it, are central to her art which has taken the form of everything from performance to sculpture to sound installations. Mudbelly, her ceramics studio, has grown to become a vital space for Black Londoners to learn the craft at the hands of Black ceramicists. Collings-James’s work has been shown at the Studio Museum Harlem in New York and Camden Art Centre, among others.
What’s your most played song on Spotify?
“4am” by Ragz Originale & Eliza.
When and where are you happiest?
Laying in the hot sun with a cool breeze, under a tree by the sea.
What’s your most treasured possession?
My gold lion necklace, gifted from my mum and nan.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
Take time.
What’s one thing people don’t know about you?
I am very shy.
What’s a book or TV show or podcast that you have loved recently?
For Flux Sake podcast.
Who is your celebrity crush?
Takiaya Reed.
What’s your favorite way to chill out?
In a hot, hot sauna.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An artist.
What’s the last concert you went to?
Dev Hynes & London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican.
LAGOS
ASHLEY OKOLI
The Lagos-based multi-hyphenate (model, influencer, stylist, and fashion designer) considers fashion both a powerful signifier of identity and an act of resistance. Her first foray into fashion design, her clothing line Sillet, launched in 2017 as a vehicle for promoting body confidence, and, more recently, she came out with Hexefae, a line conceived to blur gender lines. Okoli has appeared in Vogue and W magazines and collaborated as a stylist with musicians like Little Simz and Ayra Starr.
What’s your go-to karaoke song?
“Kiss It Better” by Rihanna or “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)” by Hillsong.
What is your motto?
I dos what I pleases.
When and where are you happiest?
With my closest family and friends.
What has been your biggest splurge?
My solo trip to Paris.
What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
MUGLER ANGEL MUSE perfume from my girlfriend.
What are three things you can’t live without?
Lip balm, music and horror films.
What’s the meal you would eat over and over again?
Amala, ewedu and gbegiri stew, undefeated.
If you could share a meal with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?
My grandma. I lost her when I was 6 and barely remember the times we had. Heard she was a big vibe!
What’s your most-used emoji?
🥺🤣
What’s your dream destination?
Greece.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
Get out of your head and into your power – Me to me, 2023
What’s a book or TV show or podcast that you have loved recently?
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Who is your style icon?
Rihanna because we’ve both got the most authentic translation of freedom through our style.
What’s your favorite way to chill out?
By the beach with music, always.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
Hiking to a Calanque in Marseille, France.
Heels, flats or sneakers?
Boots.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A surgeon/model.
What’s the last concert you went to?
ASA Live in Lagos.
ELOGHOSA OSUNDE
Words figure prominently in Eloghosa Osunde’s work: their art (which combines text along with photography, fashion and cinema and was recently exhibited at Nigeria’s National Museum) and their writing which has captivated an international audience. Their debut novel, VAGABONDS!, whose name takes its inspiration from Nigeria’s penal code for anyone deemed queer, earned wide critical praise from The Guardian, The New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times and was selected as a New York Times Critics Choice. The novel was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and shortlisted for Waterstones’ Debut Fiction Prize.
Osunde is also a columnist for The Paris Review.
What is your motto?
It’s from a Mereba song I love called “Get Free”: “I’m not trying to get by, I’m trying to get free.” That lyric follows me everywhere and sums up my reasons for doing things the way I do them.
When and where are you happiest?
At home, wherever that is for me at the time. In my car, which really is one of my favorite places in the world because we’ve been together for nine years and it has held me spectacularly. Behind the wheel, I get to decide where next, and deciding gives me joy.
What’s your most treasured possession?
The relationship that exists between me, my spirit, my work and my God.
What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
The gift of storytelling. I can change my life, expand it, remake it and/or edit it until the end, just based on that one thing being irrevocably mine.
What are three things you can’t live without?
Music, books, my relationships.
If you could share a meal with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?
Grace Jones.
What’s your dream destination?
The answer to this shifts often, but right now, Senegal, Brazil, Japan and India.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
It’s a cross between “forgive yourself again if you need to; then again after that,” and “there’s no precedent for what you’re making, so you might as well do it like yourself.”
What’s a book or TV show or podcast that you have loved recently?
The book Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson. That story is so important for many reasons: its investigations of love family growth and time, how it brings in music, what it does with repetition and rhyme for emphasis, how stunningly it lights up the Black British experience. And the prose is magnetic on a line-to-line basis. The text itself also references some of my favorite records as part of its score, which is a huge plus for me.
What piece of clothing do you wear more than anything else?
Pants. In black. Always.
What’s your favorite way to chill out?
Read. Swim. Sleep. Box. Rewatch something I already love with a glass in my hand. Jungle Book, for instance.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
Pivoting to a career as an artist after a degree in economics.
What makes you laugh?
Birds. Penguins. My friends. Memes. Being underestimated.
What’s something new you’d like to try this year?
Sculpting. Stretching daily. More curation, creative direction, and choreography. More movement-based art.
What’s the last concert you went to?
A Tems concert in London two Decembers ago. She’s an enchanting performer and it was unforgettable to be in the presence of so many people who love (her) music.
ENIOLA KORTY
Born and raised in Bodija Ibadan, self-taught filmmaker Eniola Olanrewaju, aka Korty, studied computer science in university but would pivot to making short videos in 2020; she hasn’t looked back. Her videos, which offer a lens on the lives and lifestyles of Gen Z Nigerians, have garnered a significant following: she has two shows on YouTube (one about celebrities and trends and another about the local dating scene) with half a million subscribers.
What’s your most played song on Spotify?
“Ni Nigeria” by Toye (a Nigerian artist).
What is your motto?
A star would never struggle to shine, if it’s meant for you, it will happen.
When and where are you happiest?
When I talk to God and when I create work I’m proud of.
What’s your most treasured possession?
My mind, because it has given me everything.
What’s the meal you would eat over and over again?
Tacos or pounded yam.
If you could share a meal with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?
Steve Jobs or Marilyn Monroe.
What’s your most-used emoji?
🌚
What’s your dream destination?
Switzerland; it looks so pretty.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
Plan, but don’t over plan. Leave some space for the universe to work.
What’s one thing people don’t know about you?
I really love stationery.
What’s a book or tv show or podcast that you have loved recently?
The Bear and Ted Lasso.
What’s your favorite way to chill out?
Go to the beach.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
Off a hunch, I embarked on a three-day staycation outside a hotel room in an attempt to meet Afrobeats’ most elusive superstar, Wizkid. You can watch the adventure on my YouTube.
Heels, flats or sneakers?
What makes you laugh?
Myself. I make up funny imaginations and scenarios in my head that make me laugh all the time.
What’s something new you’d like to try this year?
Skydiving.
What’s the last concert you went to?
Rema’s concert in Lagos.
WAVY THE CREATOR
Though Jennifer Ekoje, aka Wavy the Creator, is recognized primarily as a musician and photographer, her creativity is not limited to any specific forms of expression: she hopes to bend genres as much as she can. She released her afro-futurist electronica debut single, H.I.G.H., in 2017, followed by a number of other hits featuring performers like Ckay, Tay Iwar, Wurld and Efya; leads creative direction for The Cavemen; and has launched a fashion brand Piece Et Patch.
What’s your most played song on Spotify?
“Rendezvous” by Craig David.
What is your motto?
I can do anything I set my mind to.
When and where are you happiest?
When I am creating.
What’s your most treasured possession?
My mind.
What are three things you can’t live without?
Love, music, my phone.
What’s the meal you would eat over and over again?
Fried yams and fish.
What’s your most-used emoji?
🖤
What’s your dream destination?
Japan.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
No one knows what they are really doing. Don’t overthink anything.
What’s one thing people don’t know about you?
I love to cook.
What piece of clothing do you wear more than anything else?
My Pièce Et Patch Shades.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
Moved to Lagos, Nigeria on my own.
Heels, flats or sneakers?
What’s the most used app on your phone?
My notes.
What’s the last concert you went to?
The Cavemen.
TOKYO
KAITO ITSUKI
The artist’s arge-scale paintings trace their aesthetic touchstones not to the environment she grew up in (Japan’s beautiful northernmost island of Hokkaido) but to the comics and the video games she played online. Itsuki, who has a master’s in fine arts from Kyoto’s City University of the Arts, explores everything from religion to the contemporary digital age in her work which has been exhibited at Tang Contemporary Art, Gallery MEME, Hive Center for Contemporary Art and the X Museum, among others.
What’s your most played song on Spotify?
“Foreigner” by Saki Kubota.
What is your motto?
That’s the way.
When and where are you happiest?
Hanging out with my friends at their house after my deadlines.
What are three things you can’t live without?
Friends, fun paintings, flexible wake-up time.
What’s your most-used emoji?
🥵or🥶
Who is your style icon?
Colin De Land.
Heels, flats or sneakers?
My legs are too nerdy for heels. Sneakers.
What makes you laugh?
Sad-cute stories.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Just a painter!
What’s something new you’d like to try this year?
Fewer cigarettes and having a degu [a pet rodent].
What’s the most used app on your phone?
Twi…..X .
What’s the last concert you went to?
Rina Sawayama.
AOI YAMADA
A dancer and artist who was born in Nagano Prefecture and attended a dance high school in Tokyo, she first captured the world’s eye during a dazzling performance at the closing ceremony of 2020’s Tokyo Olympics. Since then Yamada has appeared in the Netflix drama First Love and The Little Prince and the short film Somewhere in the Snow; worked on her own dance projects like #YASAIDANCE; and produced music for Figaro “Inside her Head.”
What’s your most played song on Spotify?
The album Komachi by Meitei.
What is your motto?
Love is all. And: No vegetables, no life.
When and where are you happiest?
When I’m making a BENTO lunch box and when I’m performing.
What’s your most treasured possession?
Family.
What are three things you can’t live without?
Love, vegetables, water.
What’s the meal you would eat over and over again?
NUKAZUKE (Japanese pickles), miso soup, South Indian curry.
If you could share a meal with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?
My husband.
What’s your most-used emoji?
🥕
What’s your dream destination?
South India and Egypt… again because the first time I visited I couldn’t get in the pyramid.
What’s the best advice someone has given you?
“Getting old, the voice of nature, animals, and world you can hear” — Mari Azuma (Japanese model who passed away in 2023)
What piece of clothing do you wear more than anything else?
My original BENTO (lunchbox) wear.
What’s your favorite way to chill out?
Onsen baths.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
Desert camp in Egypt.
Heels, flats or sneakers?
Flats.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Flight attendant.
What’s something new you’d like to try this year?
Traditional Japanese dance.
What’s the last concert you went to?
Fireworks festival in Kochi, Japan. It is not a concert, but the sounds of fireworks are like a concert for me.
UMI ISHIHARA
The Tokyo-based filmmaker is known for melding documentary and fiction in her work. Ishihara’s first feature film, The Garden Apartment, premiered at Rotterdam’s International Film Festival in 2019, and that same year her short film Janitor of Lunacy was commissioned by the BBC. Ishihara’s work has been a part of many prestigious festivals and galleries around the world including ICA London, South London Gallery, Shiseido Gallery, and the Centre Pompidou, among others.
KOM-I
Multidisciplinary artist Koshi Misaki, aka KOM_I, is someone who follows her creative impulses, even when they lead her down an entirely new path. In fact, she started her singing career, as the lead vocalist for the music collective Wednesday Campanella, having never sung. Her music and songwriting which pulls from diverse influences like Japanese folklore and classical tunes of northern India, is a singular mask-up of techno, house and rap. She has made an album, Yakushima Treasure, with Oorutaichi; performed at the Ishibutai stone tumulus in Nara Prefecture; appeared in Netflix’s Followers and the NHK drama Our Rainy Days; and is the founder of the activist collective Hype Free Water with artist Minori Murata.