Since first appearing on Instagram feeds worldwide in the mid-2010s, Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran – together better known as Fecal Matter – have earned a reputation as some of the most fearlessly extreme fashion folk online. With their immediately recognisable clean-shaved scalps and brows, ghost-white facial makeup, blackout contact lenses, and glamorously bedraggled style, they have drawn an audience in the hundreds of thousands. But it’s their commitment to expressing themselves through fashion and beauty on their own terms, encouraging others to do the same, that has truly brought together a community of outsiders on and offline.

They first developed their inimitable – though since often imitated – aesthetic in their hometown of Montréal, which isn’t necessarily a place you’d instinctually associate with such outré creative self-expression.”If you're interested in an extreme fashion, and an extreme point of view, something that is confrontational or provoking, Montréal isn't necessarily the place for you,” Steven bluntly states. Still, it was here that they and Hannah first met as fashion students at the city’s prestigious Collège LaSalle. While it’s hard to picture Hannah and Steven as anything other than the in-sync duo they are today, their harmonious relationship was prefaced by initial scepticism: “We really didn't like each other at the beginning,” Steven laughs. “We were both very different people on the exterior at that time,” Hannah adds. “I had long blonde hair, eyebrows and I was, like, a Burberry girl – I looked like a conservative church lady, and wouldn't even show my knees!” 

It was a conversation around their respective concerns with entering the fashion industry that made them aware of the common ground they shared. “We started talking about why we were in the programme. And for me, it was a lot about addressing issues like fashion’s issues with child labour and its environmental impact,” Hannah says, “While for me, it was a lot about the beauty standards, and not seeing people representing my vision of beauty in the industry,” Steven adds. “From then, we became inseparable, because as humans, we had a similar mission and perspective on fashion.

“Slowly but surely, we became best friends and really started to help each other kind of build our confidence to be who we are,” they continue. “Hannah gave me the outlet to actually push further in my expression and I think I gave her the outlet to actually identify that she had so much in her that she wanted to release. We kind of became one another’s safe space.”

It wasn’t until after graduating that they consolidated their relationship under the banner of Fecal Matter, when the pair presented a collection as part of a textile competition showcase in Montréal. With the brand as their vehicle, they grew more and more resolved in their pursuit of their uncompromising aesthetic. They quickly realised, however, that the market for their work in their hometown was lacking. “We’d started this brand and needed to find a way to make a living – nobody in Montréal looked like us, or wanted to buy the stuff that we were making,” Steven says. “Through researching and looking online, we saw that there are so many interesting people out there in the world, people we could connect with and present ourselves to.” 

Posting in situ images of themselves going about their day-to-day lives, the pair swiftly accrued a global following for their truly out-of-this-world style – think Steven in transhumanistic veined make-up, a shredded, shadowy dress and a baguette with a double-ended dildo for a handle, and Hannah in a distressed tulle tutu and the brand’s viral ‘skin boots’ with flesh-hued silicon talon heel, often with gawk-eyed passers in the background. 

As with any aesthetic expression that transgresses staid norms, the pair have received their fair share of insult, both on and offline. Still, they remain steely in their convictions, both for their own sakes and for the ever-broadening community they empower and inspire. “Even if there is all this animosity… the identity is so strong. It is so ingrained in what I do as a daily practice of self love and of expression that nothing can get in my way,” Hannah says. 

Fecal Matter’s dedication to persevering against the cultural grain has catapulted them to the heights of the fashion industry, as proven by their frequent collaborations with the likes of Nick Knight and their longstanding relationship with Rick Owens and Michèle Lamy. More than professional success, the most enduring gift it has afforded them is the kinship and community they’ve discovered. “That's really where the heart of subcultures lies – it's about human connection,” Steven says. 

In this episode, the pair discuss the power of radical self-expression, the story behind their eyebrow-raising name, playing Michèle’s 80s birthday during the Venice Biennale, and how they never let the haters get them down.