The November 2021 Issue

‘It Takes A Village’: How The November Issue Came Together

By Lyn Atwiine | November 30, 2021

The November issue had a few more muses than the enchanting Evelyn Namatovu Kironde, whose story you can read here in case you haven’t yet. Alongside her eclectic cover were two more looks that leave jaws dropping. The creative team behind this shoot went above and beyond to make more hairtastic magic.

Mavo Kampala’s idea was a fusion of hair and the natural flow of veins in the body. This brought together these bold headpieces which had hair creeping up all over the frame, like a wild vine. According to Mavo, the eccentric looks from which the ‘Silver Bloom’ was derived were called ‘Curly Alternation’, inspired by the repeated occurrence of hair in turn, as mostly seen on women.

There is also a biological inspiration, “It was also inspired by the flow and alternation of veins & arteries for their importance in carrying both oxygenated & deoxygenated blood to and from the heart to the entire human body,” he expounds. There were two satiny looks, a bright forest green and orange, where the models are towered by the hair frames.

The direction for makeup carried on from the colourful palettes. According to Peter Russel, the artiste of the day, he was dying to play in colour, “I wanted to play up on how different colours bounce with different skin tones, how you could be creative without having to doing the basic ‘beauty look’,” he explains. The looks were bright and very ‘in your face’ with one of the girls painted in orange, with the eyeshadow blending into the cheekbones in a bright orange hue, paired with orange under the chin.

The other look played upon bold blue liner and a red lip to compliment the green outfit. Evelyn’s silver look was accessorized with red lips and eyeshadow, which framed her face and set her apart from the bouncing layers of silver. “I wanted to do something different, so I basically drew all of the ideas onto my sketchbook and then onto the face; I wanted to be very original and pick up where I had researched from,” Russel expounds. “From that research I infused the idea Mavo had come up with, as well as what I was feeling in that period of time and that’s how we came up with those looks.”

The photographer on set was Johnbosco Bahati of Kiba Shots, who was very excited to do something for the pure art of it. “The whole concept came from the fact that as an artist and creative, I usually get bored with normal work. Sometimes you’re looking towards putting something out there but the clients aren’t giving you the chance,” he explains. “I’m inspired by magazine pictures; Vogue, Vanity Fair, I come from the time of African Woman Magazine where we would buy a magazine and not even read through but just open pages and look at pictures because they were nice.”

That creative energy was yearning for an outlet which he emphasizes was not even motivated by whatever money he could get. “I approached Mavo to create something out of the ordinary, so we sat down and planned everything for this shoot. Moodboards, the team, the muses. I wanted to get magazine kind of work. It wasn’t about the money in it, it was all about the vibe around it.”

It takes a village to come up with just one outstanding image, and the team behind the scenes of the November issue were each dedicated to break moulds and venture out of the norm to come up with something worth looking at twice.