Last summer, we launched our Community Connection campaign – a global initiative where we swapped French for ‘Community’, to show our support and appreciation to local and wider communities and charities during these strange times.
A year on and community continues to be more important than ever. As part of our Community Connection initiatives, this summer we have partnered with Submit to Love Studios, part of the charity Headway East London and wider Headway UK network, helping their ongoing work in supporting brain injury survivors.
Discover Through Art
Submit to Love Studios is home to a group of diverse artists living with brain injury. The charity welcomes more than 40 artists to the studio each week. They work collectively in their studio environment to help bring out the best in each other, through creativity and making.
Their mission is “Discover Through Art”. The act of creating is an empowering, emotive and hopeful one. In making something, you’re discovering – new gifts, new culture, new connections and new identities.
Their artists are members of the Headway East London charity – a local organisation providing specialist practical and emotional support for local brain injury survivors, their families and carers.
“Art that is by everyone, for everyone.”
French Connection x Submit to Love Charity Tees
We love Submit to Love Studios and everything they encompass. We’ve been truly touched by their work and designs created by their artists. To celebrate our partnership and to support their incredible work, we've launched four uniquely designed French Connection x Submit to Love charity t-shirts, featuring the work of three of their talented in-house artists.
We’re proud to be donating 20% of the profits from all the t-shirts to the charity Headway East London, where the studio is based, to help their ongoing work in supporting brain injury survivors, their families and carers.
The Charity Tees: As seen on
As seen on @milliecotton
Spotted
Meet the artist: Tony Brooks
Introducing Tony Brooks, one of Submit to Love’s in-house artists and creator of the ‘Dalmatian’ design, as part of our exclusive charity t-shirt collection.
Tony was born in 1967 and raised in Kings Cross, where he was involved in a road traffic collision in 1981. He creates work at Submit to Love’s studio in Hackney two days per week and has developed his unique art style over almost a decade as a studio member.
His life-long residence in London is a major influence for his work, giving rise to the driving themes of: fantasies of life outside the city, open spaces, and a strange harmony between the human and animal worlds. Tony’s images are often bizarre and humorous, hinting at dark narratives beyond the captured moment and using animals to express hidden human quandaries.
“The reason people do art is enjoyment and a lot of concentration and also love. And it comes from the heart.” – Tony Brooks
“Drawing is a laborious task for Tony. Paper must be taped to the table, black permanent marker uncapped, wheelchair positioned just so. Black lines move across the page slowly but with firm certainty. Sometimes they go off in the wrong direction and Tony writes ‘SHIT’ across work that has taken hours. When they go right Tony’s pride is palpable - he grins and signs his name with a flourish. Tony’s preferred subject matter is horses, with the occasional portrait thrown in. He’s a born storyteller, telling tales that will either make you laugh or cry.” - Connie (Art Studio Coordinator).
As well as his drawings, Tony also writes as part of his artistic creative process. The Submit to Love team have copied verbatim an example that expresses his appreciation and thoughts about coming to Headway.
“Writing with love. I fill (feel) that Headway is a very helpful place for people with disabilitys. The staff are grate (great) they are polight (polite) to every one I mean thir (there) are people who can’t walk people who can’t talk and have different disabillitys. Any way making me almost cry this is because I’m a careing bloke and I love every one.”
Discover more about Submit to Love studios here
Find your local Headway organisation here.
