OP-ED: Eden Loweth on The Power Of Chosen Family In 2020

By Eden Loweth, Creative Director of ART SCHOOL and Fashion Roundtable Ambassador

In my first Op-Ed last month, I wrote in depth about the support needed for the fashion industry’s workforce, in particular, their mental health. As I wrote — both from my personal experiences, and from the information I collected for the piece — I began to consider the ways in which I, and others in my position, have garnered support and safety in the increasingly pressurised environment we find ourselves in. A thought crossed my mind at this point: for all my life I have been supported by the indefinable strength of family. By family, I don’t just refer to a blood relative but the intrinsically queer support of a chosen family, the idea that you can chose the people who become your mother, father and sibling figureheads, and who celebrate with you in times of joy and hold you up in times of hardship. And so, as we head into the festive season, at the end of the most difficult of years for so many, I want to open the door to you on the power of chosen family.

I was 14 years old when I realised the almighty weight of responsibility and sacrifice my mother, as a woman, made in order to give me the opportunity to lead a better life. My early life, everything that shaped me as a person was informed by the powerful unity of strong women who surrounded my mother as a widow with a young child. My grandmother, my aunties - Diana, Janet and Barbara. These incredible women provided me a protective, nurturing and inspiring foundation to believe I could achieve anything. Each one of them leaving a beacon of light on the path of my life’s journey.

I was lucky.

For many people, especially from inside my community, they do not have this web of strong women at such a young age to build a life around. I know how lucky I am and I’m so grateful to have had this start to my life. Within the queer community, the importance of chosen family can be vital in providing stability, safety and comfort to many who find themselves alone in a city, often discovering their true selves along the way. A combination of compounding issues like reduced earnings, the potential for financial stability, racial and ethnic discrimination and less earnings over a lifetime as an LGBTQ+ community member, leave individuals at a specific disadvantage. A disadvantage that we as a wider community must push to correct. Statistics show that queer persons frequently do not have spouses, children or religious associations as seniors, and as such are significantly more likely to be alone later in life. I’ve witnessed the incredible, emotional power that community and chosen family holds and the good it can do to real people’s lives. It’s something we should all experience.

As with all life journeys, a new chapter began when I moved to London to study, and it was here that I discovered a second, powerful group of people who have become an intrinsic part of my life and a chosen family I couldn’t live without.

As I developed my own voice, and grew into my adult self, I felt lost in a world completely alien to that of which I’d grown up, slowly through this difficult time, distanced from the women I grew up surrounded by, a chosen family began to form within my life. These people became more than just teachers and mentors, they became mothers, sisters to me – a powerful union that gave me strength when I was at my lowest and continue to raise me up when I need support or love the most.

Lulu Kennedy, Nathalie Khan, Natalie Kingham, Mimma Viglezio, Cozette McCreary, have become powerful, emotional mother figures. Paria Farzaneh, Row Seward, Lucia Blake, Emily Crooked and my studio manager Elly Beckford each becoming both my most loyal friends and the sisters I never had. All of these strong, incredible women form the backbone of my life today — they have supported, nurtured and lifted me up to believe I can become the person I’m meant to be. More than mentors, they are family.

So as we reflect on 2020, and as a community and industry we head towards the start of a new year, facing new challenges and more complex social and political landscapes than ever, I want each of you to take a moment to appreciate the family around you. Not just those defined by blood, but those who you’ve chosen to spend your life with. The idea of family, for the luckiest of us, can be a complex and often emotionally charged reality but the power of finding your own family in this world, that is something worth living for.

Finally, to the very special women I’ve spoken about here today, thank you. I love you.