This series of 9 photographs exploring ink blots, art and Mickey Mouse came about by happy accident.

Piers Atkinson was drawing away in pen and ink and was inspired by Afro hairdos accessorised with lollipops and combs by kids in Dalston. “I drew one of these and realised it was Mickey Mouse and so started drawing loads. Then I spilt the ink on my sketchpad and suddenly it was a blotch” and so was born a series of looks which fuses Rorschach (the system of ink-blot psychological analysis which was developed by Hermann Rorschach) in 1918 with fashion.

For the project Piers collaborated with artist and founder of Alternative Miss World, Andrew Logan, performance artist Ryan Styles, neon artist Darren West. “I couldn’t think of anything more fantastic than a headdress you plug in!” says Piers. Mickey Mouse appealed to Piers for several reasons. “Mickey Mouse has never gone away, it’s been a cultural icon thorugh the 50s, 60s, 70s and it is still there today. Gerald Scarfe did an illustration of Ronald Reagan with Mickey Mouse ears which reminded Piers that “the darkness of American culture is hidden behind and candy packaged in those ears, you think they are cute, but they are not cute at all.”

The series was been shot by Leigh Keily in Piers living room and printed on newspaper distributed to a selection of fashion folk. The headresses are also set to star in pop videos, photo shoots and may even appear on the catwalk at September’s London Fashion Week.

Piers is the man responsible for the daily fashion newspapers distributed at Graduate Fashion Week and London Fashion Week. His story is so far is special one, demonstrating how new talents can forge their own path in fashion. For his graduating collection Piers created headresses based on invented characters which he then photographed his sister wearing (“my mother is a milliner so headresses have always been important to me”). He then came to London and worked with Andrew Logan on Alternative Miss World and became Zandra Rhodes’ lodger. “I believe in her work so much and I just started promoting her and we got a Topshop deal – I realised that what I was doing was actually called PR.” He handed the task of controlling Zandra’s PR to Mandi Lennard, “who is of course a genius” and admits to learning PR “at the knee of Mandi Lennard and Michael Blow”. He was poached by Disorder Magazine and now, alongside working on the newspapers, he also teaches PR at Rochester. “I love it,” he beams, “there is an awful lot of soul in teaching and I enjoy helping these really talented students at postgraduate level, hopefully helping to keep more of that talent in the UK.”

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