“Black, bold and beautiful” and creating “sexy films that bang”. That’s Brixton’s Renaissance Studios.
Founded in 2017, the women-led production studio nestles opposite the bustle of Brixton station and a short walk from the David Bowie mural.
“When I think Black, bold and beautiful, people say that about a person. So I am personifying the company and I bring my blackness to the table every time,” explains Tamara Barton-Campbell, founder and creative director of Renaissance Studios.
“When I say sexy films that bang, I’m saying it’s premium content that you’re going to enjoy. I want to be known for Black premium content.”
Over the last eight years, the company has captivated viewers with the likes of The Dating Pool, a Channel 4.0 series and E4 special, the Sickle Cell Diaries for Channel 4 News, and has recently added a new ITV special, The ReStore, to its eclectic slate of work.
According to ITV, the show is an “energetic, unscripted special” that “blends sneaker restoration with heartfelt stories, celebrity surprises and cultural history.”
Commissioned by the broadcaster through its £80m diversity commissioning spend, The ReStore was among six programmes featured in ITV’s Fresh Cuts line-up, all of which premiered throughout Black History Month and Disability History Month last year on ITV1, ITVX and ITV’s YouTube channel.
“I think we’ve really tapped into a community of people who don’t tend to see themselves on TV in this way,” says Barton-Campbell.
The show, which is set and filmed in renowned Soho trainer store Presented By, sees a group of designers, creators, and sneaker experts take apart and rebuild old and often treasured trainers, with guests – including legendary athletes Linford Christie OBE and Colin Jackson – sharing the stories and meaning behind their kicks.
It was Barton-Campbell’s sister and head of development at Renaissance Studios, Charlene Campbell, who devised and formatted the show, drawing closely on her own knowledge – and love – of sneakers.
Brixton resident Jordan Taylor is director of Vamp Sneaker Cleaning. He was the production company’s first choice when it came to finding someone who could help bring Campbell’s idea to life and ultimately present the special.
“We have been trying to work with Jordan for such a long time,” says Barton-Campbell. “I just think he fits so well into that space. We’re asking him to do what he does on a daily basis in his own environment.”
Taylor is joined by an inspiring restoration team including influencer, entrepreneur and sneaker collector Franklin Boateng (aka The King of Trainers), Brent youth worker Abbey Odnusi, whose Kids Play initiative aims to combat footwear poverty in the capital, and footwear designer Liz Sanya.
At the age of just 15 and while still a student at Kingsdale School in West Dulwich, Sanya first launched a personalisation service in 2017, which she ran from her bedroom on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark.
“Glittercustoms started as a passion project just for me,” Sanya says. “I wanted some shoes I saw online and I couldn’t afford them. I was so stubborn and came up with the idea to make them instead. I didn’t have any intentions of selling custom items but once I saw people didn’t believe that I had made my own shoes, I made it a point to prove it was me.”
The Nigerian-British creator, who now has her own footwear brand Sanya, has garnered recognition from global retailer ASOS, was featured in Guap Magazine as part of its Take Note campaign and, as of January 2025, holds the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Sandal. Built in Lagos over the course of three days, the Birkenstock-style pink clog measured in at 8.147 metres long and 3.156 metres wide.
“I really just wanted to do something big,” she says. “What better way to stand out than be the world best at your craft?”
And Sanya’s ambitions haven’t stopped there. In a recent video addressing more than 70,000 followers on TikTok, she says she is currently attempting to create three new designs every week. That will mean 12 fresh designs each month and an extraordinary 144 over the course of the year. Sanya has named the challenge “12 x 12 Reloaded.”
The 22-year-old was also recognised by The Voice Newspaper in its “26 Ones to Watch in 2026” shortlist.
Praising Sanya’s unwavering drive, Barton-Campbell says: “She is so in her own lane with what she does. Working with Liz was interesting to see the process of somebody who literally says they can do anything, and actually can do anything. That’s wonderfully scary.”
Following her time shooting with Renaissance Studios, Sanya says she can definitely see herself being on screen more in future. “Shows like The ReStore inspire brilliance within for many people who look like myself and didn’t think they had permission to create in such a way.”
Because of a lack of clear commission pathways for Black production companies, difficulties in securing consistent funding and questions over representation in fashion and on screen, carving out a sustainable and successful career in creative spaces is not without its challenges.
Reflecting on the decades she has spent navigating the film and television industry, Barton-Campbell says: “I feel like we can’t always be the only one in the room – it’s such a boring story. There are lots of Black female production companies or Black women in the industry, but we just don’t know who they are.”
A report in September 2025 from Creative UK – the national membership body for the cultural and creative industries – concluded that there is a “worrying underrepresentation of women, people from working-class and ethnic minority backgrounds, and disabled people in creative sector leadership.”
According to data collected across a range of sources including Arts Council England’s (ACE) National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC), around 11% of jobs in the creative economy are held by individuals belonging to ethnic minority groups, a figure close to the UK economy in general.
However, the report states that when these figures are weighted based on where jobs tend to be found – 32% of all creative jobs are found in London and 40% of this workforce is made of people belonging to ethnic minority groups – at least 17.8% of the UK creative industries should include workers belonging to ethnic minority groups if they are to represent the UK’s diverse population as a whole.
Among the report’s other findings are that women hold 36.7% of the jobs in the creative industries.
In an effort to teach and train the next generation of people in the creative industry, Barton-Campbell founded The Rebirth Project, a not-for-profit community interest company and charity extension of Renaissance Studios. So far, the project has helped young creatives secure roles working on TV programmes like Britain’s Got Talent, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and The Rap Game.
It was thanks to a similar youth charity initiative that Barton-Campbell got her first glimpse into film and TV at the age of 11, working with the London-based charity, Youth Cable Television.
“I had access to meeting people like Harrison Ford, going to Abbey Road Studios, and even interviewing Iman, David Bowie’s wife,” Barton-Campbell says. “What’s so nice now is [with] our studio in Brixton, David Bowie’s memorial is at the top of the road. For me, that’s a full-circle moment.”
With The ReStore earning an Indie Lab Innovation Award nomination, and with efforts to pitch the series to ITV around its coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup under way, the company looks set for a busy 2026.
The team is currently working on a new digital project with Channel 4.0 which is due to be filmed this month.
Barton-Campbell also revealed that Renaissance has been asked to transform an ITV Christmas show called The Ultimate Christmas Star into a digital format for UK-wide distribution.
“I’ve always said my ambition is to have at least 10 productions on at the same time because that’s normal,” she says. “We want to show the industry what it looks like when a diverse company thrives.”
The ReStore is available to watch on ITVX and ITV’s official YouTube channel
