RADICCHIO

Sometimes the versatility of a single vegetable can be so stark that it transcends the status of mere “ingredient”. Case in point, the regal radicchio. With its bi er taste, crunchy texture and classic Dutch still-life aesthetic, it’s a hit at Soho House Rome and beyond. Best paired with citrus and salt – in fact, bacon is a dream partner for radicchio. Spring salad, anyone?

As far as pop star unveilings go, Debbie Ehirim has set the bar. The south London-based singer, known professionally as Debbie, was playing open mic nights across the capital as lockdown struck in 2020. She emerged from that strange time signed to 0207 Def Jam with a debut single: Is is Real Love? featuring Lucky Daye. Since then, the 23-year-old has opened for John Legend and Maverick Sabre on tour and achieved her first collaborative UK Top 10 with Stormzy’s Firebabe “I was telling myself to se le my dreams a bit, to humble myself,” she smiles.

“I tried to keep my expectations low.” ere was, of course, no need.

A soul artist in the truest sense of the word, Debbie describes her style as “raw”, “authentic” and “in the moment”. She never thinks too hard about the music she’s writing because, she says, “that’s how art dies off”. Instead, her songs embody whatever spirit comes out at the time. “I’m really good at pu ing emotion into my music. I feel like I can talk [about how I feel] through my melodies.” ree years ago, life was heading in a di erent direction. Debbie was a finance undergraduate at Pearson College London, on target to be an investment banker, underwriter or marketing strategist. “I loved business and numbers,” she admits. She was brought up in a “strict, religious house” and her younger days were very much “church/school, church/school”. Singing, however, was as natural as breathing. Music was rooted in her way of life. “I always had natural rhythm and harmony,” she says, so she wasn’t surprised when her mum told her she “was singing from the womb”.

Debbie admits it was a lack of confidence that stopped her pursuing music from the get-go. “But I couldn’t stop that creative itch.” So, in her first year of university, she took the leap. “I remember it clearly, sitting in my living room and making the conscious decision: I would rather be broke doing

By Karen Edwards

what I love than rich doing something that didn’t fulfil me.”

She worked two part-time jobs, doing the marketing for a start-up and as a learning advisor at a local college, all while completing her degree and a ending open mic nights and studio sessions in central London. “My mum would have been annoyed [if I didn’t finish university] and I’m a big believer in [having a] plan B,” she laughs. Not long a er, she met an A&R scout who introduced her to 0207 Def Jam – the label to which she eventually signed in November 2020. “It felt surreal.”

So, how does a finance studentturned-soul singer connect with the likes of Stormzy? e same A&R from Def Jam sent the grime star her music. When Stormzy came back saying he wanted to “jump in” on one of her sessions, Debbie was “freaking out a li le”. ankfully, “Stormz”, as she calls him, was “natural and normal. I looked at it as two people coming together to create music. But I was also trying to keep my cool so bad.” Since then, more studio time has resulted in numerous co-written tracks and Debbie’s silky vocals on Firebabe, from Stormzy’s chart-topping LP is Is What I Mean “I was humbled,” Debbie confides. “Art is personal, and for someone to say they trust you so much that they want you to feature on their art – let alone that person being Stormzy – is an honour.” is year, a European tour beckons, supporting four-time BRIT nominee RAYE. And, according to Debbie, we are yet to see what her music can really do. “I want to show the world more of that ‘Debbie flair,’” she says. e glint in her eye tells us she’ll succeed.

No Passengers is a joint endeavour from Soho House and Porsche, highlighting creative pioneers who are pushing culture forward. Over the past few months, we’ve released three docu-shorts, each focused on an individual who is a cultural leader in their field. Enter artist and designer Mac Collins, Steve and Nick Tidball of future-forward clothing label Vollebak and multi-hyphenate designer and filmmaker Dr Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian e idea came to the brothers in 2015 during an arduous run in the Namib desert, when their clothes weren’t fit for purpose. And so began Vollebak, a brand which makes clothing capable of withstanding cataclysmic world events. “Resource scarcity, space colonisation and climate change are things we factor into our design process,” says Steve. e “Apocalypse” jacket, cra ed from a material invented for NASA, is a prime example. As is their latest invention, the first computer-programmable “ ermal Camouflage” jacket.

When it comes to innovation, Steve and Nick Tidball are experts. The British entrepreneurs combine science with creativity for their boundary-breaking label Vollebak. “Instead of designing for the next fashion season, we design for the next century,” says Steve.

“We start with problems we’re trying to crack, or with a crazy material. For instance, due to climate change, parts of the world are becoming colder. We’ll design not for the coldest place on Earth but in our solar system: Jupiter’s moon, Titan,” says Steve. “So we developed the ‘Titan’ fleece jacket – as the weather gets colder, the material gets stronger.” In the second instalment of our No Passengers series, we put the brand’s “Indestructible” pu er to the test. An electric Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo drops Swedish ultra-runner Jakob Åberg (who is wearing the jacket) in the wilds of Northern Sweden. Enduring temperatures as low as -22°C, the jacket, stitched from a fibre 15 times stronger than steel, sees Åberg safely to central Stockholm, where he enjoys a muchdeserved cocktail at Soho House.

“ The most challenging aspect is where clothing will go next,” the brothers say. “It will start to combine with data, e lectronics, AI and robotics.” Ge ing people to wrap their heads around this hasn’t been as much of a task as you’d expect. “If someone had a empted this in the 1990s, the brand wouldn’t have made much sense,” says Steve. We’re living through times of outlier scenarios: wildfires, floods, people heading to Mars, a pandemic. It has made the public more receptive to a brand like ours.”

Mac Collins

Newcastle-based artist and designer Mac Collins crafts objects encompassing innovative design and inspiration from his Caribbean and African heritage. Experimenting with various artistic practices, he specialises in creating statement furniture, with one of his pieces – the Concur chair – included as part of the permanent collection at London’s Design Museum.

“I consider my practice to be at the intersection between commercial or rational design and contemporary or conceptual art,” he says. “I started in furniture, so furniture is a language that I have predominantly used [to describe my work], but as my practice matures and grows, I find more opportunities for it to shi in scale and ambition.”

Last year, Collins was awarded one of the Black British Artist Grants, designed to champion outstanding talent and created by Samuel Ross, winner of the 2022 Soho House Award for Changemaker of the Year. A few months later,

Coll ins was the subject of our first No Passengers film in collaboration with Porsche, where we visited his No ingham studio for an insight into the emotive and innovative nature of the creator’s hands-on practice. “I start each project by building the narrative and trying to define exactly what I want to communicate,” explains Collins. “Using machinery and being able to see and find the evidence of human interaction in the creation of these things is par ticularly important for me.”

One of Collins’s most recent creations was an installation exploring the game of dominoes, which holds a significant place in British-Caribbean communities.

“Playing dominoes and engaging with objects associated with the game has become a key for me to engage with aspects of my lineage,” he says. “ ese objects, like a single domino, become tokens to a larger concept.”

Collins is a shapeshi er in the world of fine art and design – his work highlights the importance of telling diasporic stories through realms of creativity that have historically been gatekept. By taking up space on his own terms, he is not only telling his own story, but spotlighting the untold stories of others and breaking barriers for a future generation of artists. “My dreams for the future of my practice is to reach different audiences with di erent languages,” he says. “I don’t want my practice to sit within a particular category of creative expression, but instead to flow between them, whether that’s commercial design, installations or smaller, tactile objects. I hope to push culture forward by offering new and divergent visual language to the established canon of Western material culture.”