Dazed Sport

Project Title: Destined For Greatness. Destined For Greatness is a collaboration between creative directors Fa & Fon Watkins and photographer Seb Barros. "Destined for Greatness" is all about capturing athletes in their element, whether it's at home, their first training spot or their childhood stomping ground. We want to vividly portray their narratives of unwavering dedication and relentless drive. Through our lens, we aim to illuminate their remarkable journey, celebrating their past triumphs, the taking part that serve as testaments to their innate talent and unwavering determination. We want to show a high intensity sport perspective. The highs and lows of being at the top of your game. It’s about capturing obscure angles and moments of exhaustion. The elation, the frustrations, the tiredness, all the stuff that shows the less glamorous life of a future and past Olympian. QUOTES Fon: As creatives who are accustomed to working with models, dancers, musicians and actors, our usual sphere felt somewhat insular, and the world of sports seemed a distant realm. We were eager to venture into something different, and with each athlete, we encountered new challenges, like ensuring we didn't ask them to perform poses that might cause injury. It was an invaluable experience, expanding our practice by collaborating with a different kind of talent. We've always been fascinated by athletes—their stories and dedication have intrigued us. This project was a pursuit of that fascination, an opportunity to explore and understand their world. Fa: Also we were super excited by the upcoming Olympics so we wanted to highlight athlete stories and their journey. It was amazing to talk to them and just hear what they have to say and bring it into the fashion realm. I’ve always viewed fashion as another form of sport and having that element combined with what others identify as an ‘actual’ sport was an interesting formula. Seb: I’ve always been attracted to shooting high performance athletes and it makes up a lot of my work. There’s a tension in athletes I find super compelling. Physically, they are able to move dynamically and often explosively but at the same time there is always a sense of control and rigour mentally. There’s a performative element to it and a discipline that I guess I’m drawn to. When I started chatting to Fa and Fon initially about ideas we could do around the Olympics, I think we quickly realised that we had a lot of the same approaches creatively and with LVMH sponsoring the Olympics, there was a confluence of the fashion and sport industries on a scale that hadn’t been done before. It was interesting to experiment with that and lean into the cultural moment as it were. We also wanted to do it in our own way - not do a straight “olympics’ story as such - but more a celebration of the athletes themselves , their teams and the preparation they go through every day. The taking part rather than winning - if you wanna British about it (lol) ABOUT THE ATHLETES OJIE EDOBURUN: Born and raised in Edmonton, North London, Ojie Edoburun was always immersed in sport growing up, crediting his “two left feet” and a missing final growth spurt as the death knell in his football and basketball dreams. But when a staff member at a Sports Day saw him compete in a relay race and convinced him to pick up sprinting, he knew he’d found his gift: “If he didn’t see me run that day then I wouldn’t be here now.” Emerging in the golden era of sprinting, Edoburun spent his first years training as the 2012 Olympics were taking over his home city - the likes of Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell serving as iconic inspiration. “The whole city was energised at that time. From then I didn’t really look back,” he says. And by 2016, at just 19 years of age, he was already on his way to Rio. “No one in my family had ever gone, no one in my area really knows an Olympian, no one in my school so it was a big deal. It felt like a testament.” The second-generation son of Nigerian parents who emigrated to the UK in the nineties, athletics wasn’t his parents first choice for a stable, secure career. But it gifted Edoburun a purpose - a discipline - that he believes changed his entire fate. ““It was an alternative too, I wasn’t getting up to no good. Obviously I know that sounds quite stereotypical but I feel like if I didn’t have this outlet of pursuing sport then I probably would have ended up just wasting life.” And today, his mentality is stronger than ever, when it comes to how he expresses himself both on and off the track. Striving for excellence in sprinting, but also prioritising peace and exploring his own creativity outside of sport. “For me now, the goal is to find out how good I can be, as a person. And that’s going to manifest itself as fast sprinting over the 100 metres. It probably does involve sub-10, it involves being one of the best sprinters the UK’s ever seen but that’s just a by-product of me being the best person that I can be - expressing myself, staying true to myself, being myself. That’s my goal, to just be myself.” Written by Natty Kasambala EMILY KING: “I think officially I rode before I walked,” Emily laughs. “Because mum used to hold me on the back of young horses to let them get used to having something on their backs.” Raised among horses and daughter of six time Olympic rider Mary King, riding was already baked into Emily King’s DNA. “It was instilled in me from when I was a kid, not that I was pushed to do it at all, but I myself was just obsessed.” And so when she completed her first event by the age of 12 and competed in championships at 15, ‘the golden girl of horse riding’ title was hers for the taking. “I’ve had it so set in my mind that I wanna be the best that I can be.” Leaving school at 16 to travel around Europe, working in rider’s yards everywhere from Germany to Sweden stockpiling experience and information: “I rode all types of horses, crazy young ones, really tricky ones, just trying to load up on experience.” But translating that innate passion into a fully-fledged career was anything but an easy or solo effort. It’s 3am starts, 22-hour cross country round trips and 8 hour riding stints, in all terrains and weathers. And to pull it off requires a close-knit team of owners, sponsors, grooms, trainers and planners. Then of course, horsepower. “That’s the other athlete we’re working with,” King explains. With a father who is also a cattle farmer, King’s closeness with animals comes naturally. “You have to have such a connection, a trust and a bond with your horse. You’ve got to be one unit. They’ve got to be fully trusting you, you’ve got to be fully trusting them. They’re basically an extension of you,” she explains. “It’s such a finely skilled sport.” In some ways, riding is a great equaliser. It’s the only Olympic sport where all genders compete on equal footing throughout and one of the few sports where age and experience serve as a valuable asset, not a ticking time bomb. Judged purely on their competency and ability as riders, something that matures right alongside you. “It’s quite amazing, you could be at a competition and be beating a 50-year-old man. Or being beaten by!” Either way, you can rest assured that Emily King is in it for the long haul. Natty Kasambala CREDIT LIST FOR PROJECT Athletes Emily King Ojie Edoburan Creative Directors Fa and Fon Watkins @fa_fon_ Photographer Seb Barros @sebbarros Photography assistant Freddie Stisted @freddiestisted Director’s assistant Ryan James @ryanashleyjames Producer Caragh Green @caragh_j Creative retoucher Justine Foord @justinefoord Article written by Natty Kasambala Styling (Emily King) by In Woo (@inneswoo) Styling assisted by Ameia Jostar (@ameiajoestar) Make up and glam by Eliza Clarke @lizey.j Stylist (Ojie Edoburan) Shammi Popat (@shammipopat) Assistant stylists: Nish Yadagiri (@nish.yadagiri) Tiamani Howard-Jones (@tia_mani) Elizabeth Welch (@lizzywelch_) With special thanks to Ojie’s coach Jemaine Olasan