The People Deserve Beauty 🌸
Since its inception,
@sportsbanger – an independent, multidisciplinary collective of creative minds and hearts – has instinctively sought to challenge conventions within the fashion industry. Hard to define, their work encompasses T-shirts with politically charged, often bootlegged graphics; a record label; frequents raves and parties; guerilla billboards; self-published books; the list goes on. They move freely between mediums and media, resisting conventional business structures or plans and connecting as much with ravers as NHS workers, kids, and pensioners (like my dad, who wears his anti-Thatcher Sports Banger T-shirt proudly and my youngest boy, who sports his ‘Solidarity with Striking Workers’ T-shirt with commitment).
McConnell’s work has appeared in diverse contexts, from early socio-political documentaries to gallery walls, self-published books, and fashion magazines. In recent years, he has scaled back his fashion work to focus on a more experimental approach to photography, creating hallucinogenic images, which he describes as ‘part camera club, part John Baldessarri’s “Wrong” series’. The photographs are often layered still-lifes of flowers, shot up close in McConnell’s studio using unconventional photographic techniques, long exposures, and bright lighting. The images are charged with colours so vivid they appear luminescent, creating an intense, head-on encounter that draws the viewer in and transports them into an alternate and intoxcating space. In conversation with Sports Banger, McConnell channelled the energy and spirit of The People Deserve Beauty to create the images published here using similarly experimental methods to his ‘nature magic’ still-lifes. A distinctive process – part Banger, part McConnell – that beautifully captures the energy and boldness of the clothes.
@mattwilliams3101
Photographs by Gareth McConnell
Collection by Sports Banger
Design & layout by Gareth McConnell
Text by Matt Williams
Typeset by
@zoltar_kieron
Edition of 223
56 pages
28 x 37 cm
Printed by Printed Easy
ISBN: 978-1-7395964-2-2
Shipped tracked & signed worldwide
Model this shot -
@tabooade
With thanks
@biglordbunnyrabbit 
