I opened the folder first
Confession: when Maga's email landed, I skipped the letter and went straight to the link. The stills loaded one after the other, and somewhere around the fourth frame I forgot there was an email at all.
I love the creativity and the art behind every single frame. I only went back to read the pitch afterwards, and it simply confirmed what the pictures had already told me.
What NICOTINE is about
Maga, the Nigerian creative producer and stylist behind the project, describes it as an exploration of
the rage and emptiness that comes from having everything in the world but still being unable to find true love.
Across a photo series and a short film, we follow one woman, played by @nosa_yuwana, as she reaches for substances to get through loneliness and desire, and through what Maga calls "the need to feel something real."
That last phrase is the one I keep returning to, because it names a hunger most of us carry even when we would never say it out loud.
Reading the frames
The palette does most of the talking. Every image sits against a bruised midnight blue wall, the kind that looks like it has been damp for years, and against it she is wrapped in red that is shredded, feathered and knotted, spilling onto the floor around her.
In the first frame she kneels beside a black chair with her hair sculpted into a tall black crown, gripping the seat like someone waiting for a person who is already very late. In another she appears three times in the same room with her arms raised, as if the same night keeps replaying.
Then the bottle arrives. She lounges on a low wooden bench with her legs stretched out in red heels, a bottle and a full glass beside her. It is the calmest picture in the whole set, which is exactly why it unsettled me.
From there the story starts to break. Her face lies flat on a mirrored surface, staring into its own reflection. She screams, and two more versions of her scream behind her. Black tears run down her cheeks while her gloved arms, red and feathered, fold across her own chest as though she is the only one left to hold her.
The strangest image of all has her flying through a starry sky with a long spear, driving it straight through a heart made of red fire. The final still turns her upside down, chrome resting over her eyes and a red headpiece blooming around her head like the heart has moved in.
The film
The film runs just over a minute, shot vertical by @majikchan, who also edited and coloured it, and it moves like the same evening seen from inside her head.
It opens wide on her standing side on beside a white bench, against that same blue wall, and then the camera starts to close in. We get her jaw, the chrome beads resting on her collarbone, a blur of blue sliding across the lens and red feathers filling the whole frame.
Then she is sitting on the bench, then climbing onto it, then her head is hanging upside down with her lips parted. A few beats later she stares straight down the lens with both hands behind her head, and the look on her face is somewhere between a dare and a plea.
It ends where it began, back at the wall with her hands on her hips, as though the night has reset itself and is ready to run again. That loop is the saddest thing in the whole project for me, because it suggests she will be back on that bench tomorrow.
The uncomfortable part
Here is my honest reaction, and I suspect Maga wants it. NICOTINE is gorgeous, and that beauty is the danger the project is playing with. Substances always arrive looking like this, with a red dress, soft light, a full glass and the promise that tonight you will finally feel something.
The project lets you enjoy that glamour for a few frames and then hands you the bill in the mirror, the scream and the tears. I appreciate that it does this work without preaching at anybody. She is lonely in a beautiful room, and the room cannot help her.
We live in a culture that celebrates success loudly and keeps loneliness very quiet, especially for women who look like they have it all. A story that sits in that silence deserves space.
Why it belongs on EscapeMag
EscapeMag exists for work where styling, art direction, photography and film do the storytelling together, and every detail here was chosen with intent. Look at the chrome jewellery against dark skin, the sculpted hair, and the red that travels from dress to gloves to heart to headpiece like a pulse you can follow across the set.
Maga calls it fashion led storytelling, and that is accurate, because the clothes carry the plot from the first frame to the last. It also took a full crew of young Nigerian creatives to pull it off, and every one of them is credited below.
Take your time with the stills, then press play.
NICOTINE credits
Creative direction: @tofa.the.pusher and @the_boy_from_africaa
Creative producer: @magaenvulanza
Cinematography, edit and colour: @majikchan
Photography: @olawaleadoladele
Talent: @nosa_yuwana
Styling: @magaenvulanza
Styling assistants: @kontzstyling and @unknow_lenzzz
Wardrobe: @nifastudios
Alterations: @zorimakama
Hair: @the_arrowbow
Makeup: @indeeya
Face chart: @_j.i.t.a
Production manager: @mvikudi_money
Production coordinator: @mylay_biggest
Production assistant: @yerofilms
Art direction assistant: @jstimz
Creative assistants: @realdirectorb and @abbaxposed
Design: @leinadsarchive
Design assistant: @uglyblondee__
Set design: @sulaymahh
Set assistant: @deraswagstars100
Location: @nxtwavestudios_
Retouching: @aniadobei_retouch