Steven Ma Creates an Eerie ASMR Experiment for "Collection No. 4"

As part of London Fashion Week FW23, footwear designer Steven Ma tapped Brenda Hashtag and Anni Bread to create a short film titled Pump Fiction. It was the start of an obsession for the emerging London-based designer, who has now partnered with the multidisciplinary visual artist Olive Gilson on a series of ASMR videos.

Without revealing too much of the plot (as you can find the video above), Steven Ma and Olive Gilson have used a series of stills and clips to create a dialogue of “Collection No. 4”‘s contents. Explaining the concept in more depth, Ma told Hypebeast:

“In the initial stages of putting the ideas together, we were very sure that we wanted to stay away from the stylings of a conventional fashion campaign or fashion film, as people pay less attention to slick and polished media these days. We wanted to move in a more fun direction and with the rise of short-form video on social media, we wanted to explore our own ASMR videos. I personally really love ASMR and similar types of content, I find them mesmerizing and can relax watching them back to back. We also wanted to explore what could be done on a small budget, emerging brands are pushed to spend more and more money on content these days and we wanted to show that exciting imagery could be created in a stripped-back way.”

The result ranges from a series of ironically intimidating text messages that come one after the other, sure enough to cause some sense of stress. To calm, a sensory mix of intergalactic sounds meet visuals of sparkling bejeweled shoes. Elsewhere, bubbles pop and crackle in an effort to explore the brand’s signature clear heel, while shadows, light, sound, textures and fetishes come to the fore later on in the series of ASMR videos.

You can watch the video above, and find more from Steven Ma online or on the brand’s Instagram account.

For more progressive footwear, take a look at GCDS’ latest size-inclusive drop.