Shareef Mosby will show Victim15’s fall/winter line at Art Basel Miami Beach this month. (Photo by Justice Studio courtesy Shareef Mosby)
Growing up, Shareef Mosby was upcycling his clothing before he even knew what “upcycling” meant. After relocating to Richmond from New York as a child, his creative spark led him through numerous careers in the arts, ranging from photography to interior design, eventually finding fashion as an outlet for his unconventional designs through his label, Victim15.
“We specialize in testing different boundaries with creating pieces,” Mosby says. “I would say our stuff is very avant-garde. We use a lot of different foreign objects and unconventional methods of creating clothes.”
Mosby, who has shown his creations on runways in Richmond and fashion hubs including New York City and Miami, builds on this ethos of shaking convention in his latest show, “Loading Perfection.” The collection of fall/winter streetwear was part of the Art Basel showcase in Miami on Dec. 9.
The collection is centered around embracing the idea of rebels in society, Mosby says. “To me, ‘rebel’ means to highlight one’s flaws instead of hiding them,” he says. “At the end of the day, it is not our business to worry about what others think of our being.”
To conjure up the rebel spirit, Mosby draws on inspiration from action film and gaming franchises. “It’s going to be more edgy, you’ll see a lot of ‘Mad Max’ and ‘Tomb Raider’ references,” Mosby says.
A look from Victim15’s summer 2022 show in Miami (Photo by Thomas Nguyen courtesy Shareef Mosby)
Victim15 operates out of a production studio in Manchester, where Mosby designs, samples clothes and takes product shots. He says he has witnessed the city’s evolution, both physically and in the fashion industry, for the past eight years, and finds inspiration in fostering the local fashion community.
“Staying in Richmond means actively creating opportunities rather than merely pursuing them. … We’ve made strides in Richmond, empowering local talent and nurturing creativity, which is personally rewarding.”
For Mosby, his work has never been about selling clothes, but instead about being involved with others. “It’s about creating experiences with the people that we work with and our fans and supporters,” he says. “I definitely want it to continue to feel more community based.”
