Gunta Andrews, founder and designer of Don’t Dictate
Clothes, character and place.
Clothes, character and place.
Gunta Andrews is the designer behind Don’t Dictate, a developing fashion brand challenging the way older women are represented and designed for within the fashion industry. A graduate of Anglia Ruskin University’s BA (Hons) Fashion Design course, she won the Inclusive Fashion Award at Graduate Fashion Week 2026 for her collection for older women, and was also selected for the Graduate Fashion Foundation x Liberty Fabrics competition.
Gunta asked me to photograph the collection because she felt I understood what she was trying to say with it. I suggested an industrial location of concrete, machinery, tyres and rubble. The contrast felt right: individuality, age and style set against something deliberately hard and uncompromising.
This was my first fashion shoot, but the way I approached it was familiar. Understand the people, the work and the place, then let the photographs grow from that. The clothes mattered, but so did the women wearing them, the way they moved and the confidence with which they occupied the space.
The result sits somewhere between portraiture, documentary photography and editorial fashion, with the industrial landscape becoming part of the story rather than simply a backdrop.
Old Crows, 2026
