Breaking news: I am a woman of colour who mourned the passing of the Queen. It transported me back to being 19 when I lost my Dad, and took me back to when the world lost Princess Diana. I’ve found myself filled with sadness for children who lost parents so young. Prince Harry at 11, myself aged 19, The Queen at 25. Grief at a young age gives those scars time to appear ‘healed’ but the truth is, time just means they’re further out of sight. Trust me when I tell you they remain present, and deep under the surface, so that your insides hurt, even if the outside doesn’t always anymore. I am also a woman of colour who read @shashitharoor’s Inglorious Empire in 2017 and felt sick to my stomach at the things I was never taught in school.. And as a result, I set upon a journey to refocus my work and have spent the best part of 10 years on black and brown storytelling, styling people who look like me and developing projects on my history, our heritage, our collective pasts and how to celebrate and embrace our futures... I enrolled to Oxford to study a History of Indian Art and embarked on Masters in Producing at Royal Holloway. Educating myself so that when I use my voice, it comes from a place of knowledge and empowerment. It’s possible to be sad that the Queen has passed AND be outraged by history. Life is not black and white and so my goal is to seek out and paint the colours where I can. And even sometimes, create my own Brown Disney Princess moments. 😉 Realism aside - and hence the photo. (That’s the stylist part of the brain). ✨🤎