April 8, 2026 |
When London-based creative Ronan McKenzie answers the phone, she’s on her way home from a freelance floristry gig with beloved Peckham institution Sage Flowers. “I really wanted to add something to my creative roster that was just meditative and fun and playful,” she says, as the sound of her car indicator pulses and clicks in the background, “so I asked if I could go and intern there.”
This feels like a fitting entry point to McKenzie’s refreshing approach to life: if you’re interested in something, why not give it a shot? Or, as she puts it: “There’s no point not doing it! I’m the only person who’s going to lose if I don’t give it a go.”
It takes an especially bold and inquisitive kind of person to keep adding strings to their bow when that bow already includes a lengthy list of professions. First and foremost, she’s known as a respected photographer, taking stunningly soft, intimate, yet powerful portraits of the likes of FKA twigs, Solange and Serena Williams, alongside working as a director and curator. Then there’s being a designer at her own label, Selasi, which is beloved for sleek lines, tactile materials and sculptural aesthetics rooted in things she herself wants to wear (“I’ve always just designed and made with myself at the centre of it”). McKenzie has also previously been a stylist, as well as an art space owner. She founded and ran Home, which was renowned for showcasing underserved communities in the art world, in North London from 2020 to 2023. This is all without mentioning her brief stint as a podcast host and her occasional work in journalism; she most recently put out a free monthly newspaper, Selasi Stories, as an offshoot of the label. She has a busy social life too, mentioning the annual sports day she organises for her friends where they play rounders and do egg and spoon and sack races for an array of fun prizes. And when we speak, she’s working on the new Selasi collection, which she is preparing to showcase at London Fashion Week in February: “I’ve never shown on schedule, I’m really excited about that!”
from left: ISSEY MIYAKE and SPORTMAX
To anyone else this might seem like an overwhelming list. For McKenzie, though, this is not the product of being especially restless as a person but, rather, an innate curiosity. It’s something that she partly credits to growing up in Walthamstow, East London. “It’s such a culturally rich and diverse place,” she says, “Most people on my street were from different places, which fostered a love of learning about people’s cultures and food, and being respectful of differences, as much as the ways that we come together.”
It was this aspect of McKenzie’s childhood, along with her parents encouraging her and her siblings with constant “positive reinforcement” and an imploration not to be idle, that left her with a passion for learning new things. “We couldn’t just sit around and watch telly,” she says, “We had to be doing something that was either creative or productive or educational or useful in some way. I probably learnt then to fill my time with things that I either enjoy or am interested in. They always encouraged me to try anything that I fancy and see if it works.”
SELASI
Indeed, beyond taking their kids to museums and parks as much as they could, her mum even went so far as to bring McKenzie and her older sister to the local vet, Goddard, as both of them thought they wanted to be vets at the time. That particular aspiration ended after a half day of work experience, she recalls with a laugh: “We were in primary school and we were like, ‘Oh, actually, it’s not just stroking bunnies all day…’”
But even if that brief interlude of veterinarian training didn’t stick, that early encouragement to try things out has come to be integral to McKenzie’s creative practice throughout her life. Alongside working various retail jobs from the age of 16, she did an art foundation course and hopped between different internships, trying things on for size. “I think the opportunity to give things a go has been valuable for me,” she says, before hesitating. She continues, “I completely understand that, obviously, unpaid internships have huge negatives, especially if you’re not already living in the city. But at the same time, courses are really expensive.” She points to floristry, with learning programmes that can cost upwards of £3,000. “And so, I thought: I want to learn, but I don’t want to pay, so if I can find somewhere to go and intern, then I can learn for free.”
from left: jacket by LOUIS VUITTON and HERMES
Though she got a place at Central Saint Martins to study Fashion Communication, it was not long into her course that she felt it wasn’t the right fit. She dropped out and began working as an assistant stylist for editorial shoots via someone she’d met at an NTS Radio party. While on sets, she began to observe up close the role of the photographer and found herself intrigued by the medium – she had toyed with taking photos during her art foundation course, but it was not something she had ever considered seriously. “I started just spending more time doing it, sharing it and seeing what happened,” she says. “I don’t think there was a moment where I was like, ‘I really want to be a photographer’; I was enjoying it, so I was doing it, and then I was doing it more because I was enjoying it.” At the time she was still living at home and working in retail so, she says, “I had the capacity to explore. I started getting jobs and then I got approached by an agent who I’m still with – that was 10 years ago.”
Just as she had used the money from her retail job to allow her to pursue photography, she used some of that photography money to open the gallery space. In general, McKenzie says that she likes to ensure her work is self-sustaining. “I’ve given myself a lot of freedom to invest in myself,” she says. “I’ve always created scenarios where I can do what I want. And I’ve done that through not relying on other people giving me money.”
from left: jacket and skirt by MAX MARA and jacket and shoes by CHLOE
That’s not to say she’s not interested in collaboration – she does the creative and art direction for the albums and live shows of the musician Anaiis, and enjoys the insight of other photographers shooting her own work for Selasi: “It’s amazing to be able to bring their eye into what I’m doing. It further builds the world and amplifies the vision.”
She also mentions working with people who have skillsets outside of what she can do for Selasi, including illustrator Moya Garrison-Msingwana (aka Gangbox) and graphic designer Shawn Sawyers, and how she melds their creative perspectives together in order to bring to life more everyday objects. “Selasi is a balance of me doing things I want to do and also translating that into things people can actually enjoy,” she says. “There’s a whole very aspirational, performative, impractical design that I love, but then there’s also, like… my dream is to do washing-up gloves, like Marigolds, because they’re so everyday that they’d be used a lot. Doing things that intercept people’s daily lives is fun and collaborating helps with that.”
SRVC
These aspirations of infiltrating people’s day-to-day lives with her work might not be out of reach, as McKenzie has gone from strength to strength these past few years. With rising acclaim, however, has come a slight unease and a desire to reposition how much people know about her personal life. Whereas in her first home, which she bought in 2021, she gave various photoshoots and interviews about the interior design choices, she has since moved and, for her self-shot 10 cover, is careful about what she reveals. “I guess there’s a level of privacy that I’m seeking at this point in my life,” she says. “So when I was going to take these images for this story, I was thinking, ‘Alright, how am I going to do this in a way that still allows me to retain my privacy and sense of self while still capturing myself and my own home?’ It was a real challenge.” The resulting photos make use of light and dark, the corners of rooms, and find McKenzie utilising props that signal specific parts of herself: magazines, a Kofi Perry painting her partner won for her in the annual sports day sack race, copies of Selasi Stories. “I was more thoughtful and intentional about myself in my space and how malleable it can be for what I needed it to be like. I needed it to be my studio. So it became that, and I think that is more representative of where I am in my life at this time.”
Now in her late twenties, she is still very much at the beginning of her career. But these photographs are indicative of someone stepping up a level, cementing herself at the forefront of Britain’s creative talent entirely on her own terms. Her boundless passion, care and curiosity – as a photographer, curator, designer, and whatever else she chooses – only seems set to grow, as she keeps exploring all the beautiful ways she can express herself. “It’s like speaking another language,” she says. “You know how, in some languages, certain words don’t exist and others don’t have translations? I think one vocabulary can be quite limited, especially creatively. These different mediums are just my different vocabularies.”
Taken from 10 Magazine Issue 76 – CREATIVITY, CHANGE, FREEDOM – out NOW. Order your copy here.
RONAN MCKENZIE: IN BLOOM
Photographer, Fashion Editor and Talent RONAN MCKENZIE
Text TARA JOSHI
Fashion assistants GEORGIA EDWARDS and TOMMY DOWLING
Production SONYA MAZURYK
