By Roshni Goyate

We kicked off this year’s International Women’s Day activities with our second annual takeover of the Apple Covent Garden store in London, where we curated a panel on empowerment, confidence and self-worth.

A year ago, for International Women’s Day 2019, we were asked to take over the Apple store in Regents Street and show how we’re powering change through creativity. That day we chose the theme of ‘celebrate your achievements’ which is a mantra we go by here at The Other Box, as a tool for navigating the creative industry as women of colour. We were blown away by the response from the interactive ‘hands-on’ activity, where audience members shared their incredible individual achievements. 

Another mantra we go by is ‘pass the mic’ – by which we mean to share your platform and bring other people up with you. So when Apple asked us to return this year for an International Women’s Day takeover of their Covent Garden store, we wanted to bring along some women who inspire us to be our best selves every day and hear their insights and stories of empowerment, confidence and self-worth.  

On the panel, we had three women who in their own ways are challenging perceptions of what it means to be a woman in the twenty-first century: trans activist Charlie Craggs, co-founder of fitness platform Food & Lycra Rachel Tran, and host of Channel 4 Naked Beach and self-love advocate LaLa Love. Each of them shared openly about their journeys into empowerment, their advice on confidence and insights into self-worth. It’s safe to say we were floored by the discussion in the best possible way.  

The interactive ‘hands-on’ activity after the panel involved audience members taking a picture of our panellists or a self-portrait in an empowering pose, then turning that into an illustration, guided by the Suze, Apple’s in-house creative. 

It was amazing to see everyone getting stuck in, flexing new creative muscles. We’ve shared some of the remarkable illustrations below - check them out! 

As with all of our events, we like to make sure people leave with practical advice. When we asked each panellist what they would tell their 15-year old self about self-worth, here’s what they had to say: 

Charlie Craggs

LaLa Love

Rachel Tran

Thank you so much to Apple for having us for the second year in a row, to our guests for bringing the energy, and to everyone who turned up that rainy evening to join us in celebrating International Women’s Day. 

Banner photograph by Zainab Khan (@_zaikhan)