HÄN Archive

SAFE RISK by Francis Whorrall-Cambell and Annabel Ballance

SAFE RISK is a collaboration in words and clothing between artist and writer Francis Whorrall-Campbell and Designer Annabel Ballance. The two grew up in the same small city in the North of England, but only met when they both came to London.

Annabel’s designs facilitated the writing provided by Francis, which offers a dreamlike reflection on fashion as a means of accessing their gender transition. In small-town England, high fashion and being queer feel like fantasies - a way of being and presenting donned ‘elsewhere’ - but Francis reflects on how Annabel’s clothing gives the wearer the security to exist in any environment.

Introduction and writing by Francis Whorrall-Cambell

Image, clothes and styling by Annabel Ballance

Text and image by Francis Whorrall-Cambell

I have a recurring fantasy that I am at some party or opening making small talk with strangers and a guy comes up to us and puts his arm around me and when the strangers ask how we know each other he will say ‘Oh, Francis is my boyfriend.’ In this fantasy it is very important that I am wearing the best gear, like a

Green Miu Miu men’s techwear vest from FW1999 over a wife beater, black Lacoste capri pants and Nike Shox MR4 x Martine Rose in Blue
Homemade Trinh T Minh Ha tee under a Nurse Naoya hoodie with my sister’s 501s
Prison warden chain (complete with keys), McQueen Bumster Pants and M&S boxers
Purple Calvin Kleeini 205W39NYC felt cowboy hat stolen from (ex) housemate
Custom fit by Annabel Ballance

The gear is the best because it lets me fashion myself, literally like, into being. Clothes make the man and I am him: bloody beacon on a stolen horse, oily angel full of throttle and spit and anti-fascist sentiment. Take the best and leave the rest. Which is what I do in my dream of the fag who’s half a woman

- Oh when you walk by every night

Talking sweet and looking fine

I get kinda hectic inside

Mmm baby I’m so into you

Darling if you only knew

All the things that flow through my mind.

(Mariah Carey, Fantasy)

Text and image by Francis Whorrall-Cambell

Armour -> armoire. Wardrobe as protection. And another false friend: love. I want to draw a picture of that scene from Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’, the one that shows up first when I type the film into Google. Claire Danes as Juliet is dressed as an angel in a white dress and wings, she stands on the left next to DiCaprio’s Romeo who has come in the twentieth century facsimile of a medieval knight. The two press palms in a neat intertextual throwback, but what I love most is the layers of new interpretation. Angel and knight: opposite cultural signs of peace and war joined by the same an overlap in a forgotten Venn diagram: love and protection. Does this screenshot allow us to imagine their union once again? The forcefield that covers the collective unconscious sputters for a second. I want to bear both these costumes, to make this connection real on my body. To love and protect myself, even if it is just a romantic fantasy of times gone by.

Image by Annabel Ballance

Credits:

SAFE RISK by Francis Whorrall-Campbell and Annabel Ballance.

Annabel Ballance is a Menswear Designer and interdisciplinary artist. They are a graduate of the Royal College of Art and recipient of the Dior MAN BFC Scholarship for 2022/3, with industry experience from brands such as Acne Studios and Bless Service.

Francis Whorrall-Campbell is a self proclaimed fashion gay. As an artist, they have presented projects at EACC Castellon, Spain; the National Sculpture Factory, Cork; Auto Italia, London; and Nottingham Contemporary. Their critical writing has been published by e-flux, Art Monthly and The White Review. They are a 2024 Laureate of the Principal Residency Programme at La Becque.

Photography: Annabel Ballance

Writing: Francis Whorrall-Campbell

An archive submission HÄN received in October 2023 by Annabel Ballance.

24/10/2023