The awkward moment that made me

We all have a moment we’d scrub from memory if we could: an email we regret, a joke that landed flat, signing off a call to your boss with ​“Love you.” Such fumbles can feel like the end of the world. But honestly? Everyone’s usually too busy spiralling about their own micro-disasters to notice yours. (To quote Nadia Lee Cohen’s new T‑shirt, ​“No one is thinking about you!”)

Shiny CV or not, awkwardness comes for us all. Take Vivienne Westwood​’s AW93 show in Paris: Naomi Campbell, then at the height of her career, wobbling on those now-infamous nine-inch platforms. One misstep, and down she went, flat on her bottom at the centre of the runway. For a second she just sat there. Then she laughed, stood up and carried on as if nothing happened. We like to imagine the room exhaled with her. Westwood even called it beautiful, likening Naomi to a sprightly gazelle.

Decades later, the clip still does the rounds – not just for the biblical fall, but for the way she embraced it. If even a supermodel can eat it on the runway, surely the rest of us can take our little embarrassments in stride.

This line of thinking is front of mind right now, not least for the dating platform Hinge, which has just begun a new campaign, entitled Awkward, Together. Part of its broader One More Hour initiative – a push for Gen Z to endure the awkwardness of IRL encounters and come out the other end better connected to new people – Awkward, Together has been conceived in collab with charmingly scatty digi-mag, Perfectly Imperfect, complete with a bespoke guide to being awkward. It’s proven helpful to us, that’s for sure.

So, in the spirit of leaning into the awkward, THE FACE asked young creatives to spill their own eek-worthy moments. From risky DMs to clumsy dance floor encounters, here’s proof that nothing’s ever that deep.

Bea Dero, 23, is a British-Iranian photographer from North West London who uses her practice to unpick diasporic identity.

What’s the most awkward you’ve ever felt on a job?

When I first started shooting, I [had] never intended to become a photographer. I just had a lot of creative ideas I wanted to realise. I never actually learned how to use my camera properly (manually). I would have it on automatic all the time. But if you are shooting with flash, you need to adjust the settings to the darkness of the room. I was still in uni, working with a client. I kept shooting, and sometimes it would work out; other times the image was either pitch black or completely overexposed. I was like, ​“Oh, sorry, I think there’s something wrong with my camera.” My [solution] was to keep clicking the button, praying that it would work. And eventually it did.

Do you have a quirk you used to hide but now embrace?

I’ve always had all my quirks out on the table and tried to keep it as authentic as possible. In secondary school, I used to walk around with pencils and pom-poms in my hair, but I just got away with it. I owned it.

When was the last time you properly laughed at yourself?

Probably whenever I cry. It’s been a hormonal period, so I’m crying a lot. Sometimes everything feels a bit overwhelming. You think you’ve figured stuff out, but then you’re like, ​“I’m so lost, I have no idea what to do – I know nothing.” So you cry and figure it out.

Are you an overthinker?

Definitely. But then something just fits into place. I was really shy as a kid and had to force myself to be confident. I’d throw my hand in the air even if I didn’t know the answer. Once your hand is up, you have to do something.

Have you ever tripped on your nerves but managed to pull it off?

I’ve lived with anxiety my whole life, so I’m always going to have pre-nerves for anything I care about. The biggest nerves I had this year were for my show [Bound by Two Homes, at Hackney Gallery in March] because it was outside my comfort zone, and I did it quite quickly, setting the whole thing up within three months. Going through that – a lot of tribulation – made it so rewarding in the end. I feel like you have to run towards the fears.

Oscar Ouyang, 26, is a Chinese CSM alum stocked in Dover Street Market London. He crafts intricate knits, riffing on the likes of Studio Ghibli or medieval art.

Are you an overthinker, or do you wing it?

I think it’s good to keep a balance. Sometimes there are moments you need to overthink. Sometimes, you just need to go for it.

What’s the most awkward encounter you’ve had in the fashion industry?

I went to a friend’s birthday party I wasn’t invited to at a bar in London. There was a big group of friends, and I recognised someone in the group. I was like, ​“He looks so familiar. Really cute and quite twink-ish looking.” Then we were on the dance floor, and he came up and said, ​“Hi, what’s your name?” I tried to act natural, but two seconds in I realised it was Seán McGirr, the creative director for [Alexander] McQueen. [I thought], ​“Oh, great, I know who you are.” The friend whose birthday it was showed up, a little drunk, and asked me how come I didn’t know who Seán was. It was awkward, [but] Seán was quite natural about it.

Is there a mistake you’ve made that worked out in your favor?

Yes, the Seán McGirr one because it was an icebreaker!

What’s the weirdest way you’ve met a collaborator or friend?

I usually meet my collaborators through friends of friends or Instagram. Hinge actually… There was a hairstylist; we matched on Hinge and decided to get a drink and talked about collaborating.

Is there a risky DM you sent that actually paid off?

Quite a few when I first started [my] label. You don’t have that industry recognition, so you reach out to lots of people. Sometimes you think about it for days. Usually, you get quite positive responses. Like the set designer we have for this season, [Gary Card]. We always run into each other at Dover Street Market store parties. I messaged him, asking, ​“Are you coming to this party tonight? I would like to chat with you.” And he said, ​“Yeah I’ll be there.” It’s hard when you’re in a party trying to pitch an idea. As he walked in, I was about to leave. I just straight up said, ​“Do you want to do the show?” We were surrounded by a group of people. He said his schedule was really tight. In the back of my head I was like, ​“Fuck, he doesn’t want to.” But he said he’d love to.

Olivia Sterling, 28, is a Lincolnshire native living in London. She paints plump, delicious scenes, merging sickly foods with large bodies, exploring race, class and body ideals.

What’s the most awkward moment you’ve had in a creative setting?

With studio visits, sometimes well-intentioned white people – maybe in order to try and ​“get into the work” – like to throw around inclusive words that aren’t appropriate. Or, on the absolute other end of the spectrum, they come into my studio and think my work is just about food, and I have to give them a lecture on racism. One specific time, a curator was like, ​“Oh, you must like doing work about white people because you, like, pass.” I ended up using it as the basis of another show, so at least I turned it into a nice thing.

Is there a risky DM you sent that actually paid off?

My favourite artist, Lubaina Himid, followed me on Instagram, and I immediately messaged her like, ​“Oh my god, you’re my favourite artist.” She ghosted me, which… fair enough. In terms of painters, I think we follow each other but hardly ever get to see each other in real life.

Do you have a quirk you used to hide but now embrace?

I accidentally go too deep. It gets me in quite a lot of trouble – like with Uber drivers, you shouldn’t really go that deep. My favourite painting I’ve ever made is based on a quote from an Uber driver. He was Somalian and talking about beauty standards in Somalia and dark-skinned women. He said a phrase like, ​“We love women who shine like a coin.” I was making a painting about a dark-skinned woman at the time, and was like, ​“I’ll name it that.”

When have you tripped over your own nerves but still managed to pull it off?

I was at the ICA recently where Lubaina Himid curated a show. I was in the crowd by myself and asked a question to the panel. The build up was so much that it gave me a stress headache. They said it was a really good question – ​“Are curators and museums combating the right’s co-option of inclusive language?”

Are you an overthinker, or do you wing it?

I like to think about every possibility, but I would say painting is better when you’re not thinking about anything. I recently realised I would unconsciously paint foods that I had eaten with an ex – loads of soft serve [ice-cream]. It’s nice to almost crystallise those moments.