For many fashion students, presenting their work follows a familiar path. For Nazlı May, it became something far more immersive.
The Fashion Marketing & Promotion student at the University of Westminster launched her debut brand, NazlıMay, through a combined runway show and rave event, unveiling her Prototype collection to an audience that became part of the experience itself. It wasn't a polished showroom or a mood board on a wall. It was a night — raw, communal, and deliberate.
Nazlı's work sits at the intersection of fashion, identity, and activism. As a queer Turkish creative living in London, her brand carries the weight of a culture she loves and a political reality she refuses to accept. NazlıMay isn't just a label — it's a response to what's happening to queer and women's rights in Turkey right now, and a refusal to be silent about it.
In Gemini Issue 3, the student-produced fashion magazine from the University of Westminster's FMP course, she talks about what drove her to create it:
"I just released the Prototype collection through a runway show and rave event. It was a small but meaningful first step in introducing NazlıMay to the world.
NazlıMay began as a deeply personal project born from a need to create something that felt true to who I am and where I come from. As a queer Turkish creative living in London, I carry both pride and pain from my heritage. My culture is rich with beauty, craft, and history — but also marked by a growing wave of oppression, particularly against women and LGBTQ+ people. In Turkey today, the rights of queer individuals and women are under increasing threat. Safe spaces are disappearing. Voices are being silenced. Expression is being policed.
NazlıMay was my response to that reality. This brand was never just about clothes — it was about creating a safe, expressive space when so many others are being taken away. It became a way to protect, preserve, and uplift the voices that systems are trying to erase. It's a love letter to the underground. To the misfits."
"NazlıMay isn't just a brand — it's a home for the bold, the tender, the fearless, and the in-between. It's where vision meets vulnerability, and where community becomes the core of creation."
The show itself reflected this ethos entirely. Prosthetics, avant-garde styling, and a cast of models chosen for presence over convention. A DJ lineup. A crowd that stayed. The kind of event where the clothes and the atmosphere are inseparable.
This is what a Westminster FMP looks like when a student decides their project should matter beyond a grade.
Show Credits
Designer: @bynazlimay / @nazlimay
Producer/Organiser: @bigsilverproduction / @ph1aphia8
Key Makeup: @makeupbyrossino
Key Hair: @retrobeauty_mua
Hair/Makeup Team: @1tsjustjess, @lily.j.mua
Prosthetics: @pseudocremua
Styling: @cultmi
Models: @sienna_nicole, @sophiacarroll, @m9ttykayy, @ameliaeveritt, @jj0intt, @luvfromeddie, @isabelpeplow
DJs: @kanjuro_ichikawa, @mikakailes, @2meow_0822, @reenie.dj
Videographers: @eosfilmss, @paulo_marillion
Photographers: @prishachande, @sartoriorioriori, @onlyshotbyj
This piece features work first published in Gemini Issue 3, the student magazine produced by Level 5 Fashion Marketing & Promotion students at the University of Westminster.
