I was honoured to create the cover of Scene Magazine’s summer issue launching on 01 June for Pride Month and available to pre-order now.
(enter SUMMER2026OFFER at the checkout to get £3 off your order!)
Scene Magazine was founded in Brighton in 1993 and has grown into one of the UK’s leading independent LGBTQ+ publications. Covering news, culture and politics from Brighton and beyond, it amplifies queer voices and documents community life at both a local and national level. Subscriptions support Scene’s journalism and contribute to Pride Community Foundation’s grant-making and policy work.
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Created by award-winning Brighton-based photographer Chris Jepson, luminaries of the Brighton Ton were invited to the Banqueting Hall of the Royal Pavilion to celebrate Pride at the Pavilion.
Brighton’s Royal Pavilion is unlike any other building in Britain. Built for pleasure, designed for spectacle, and dripping in a flamboyance that polite society could barely contain, it has always been a place where the rules bend and the extraordinary feels ordinary. Its domed silhouette and gilt interiors weren’t built for subtlety – they were built to dazzle.
That spirit hasn’t dimmed. If Pride is about visibility, self-expression, and refusing to apologise for who you are, then the Pavilion isn’t just a beautiful backdrop. It’s a kindred spirit. There is nowhere more fitting to raise a glass and begin.
A huge thank you to our gorgeous cover stars, who hail from right across the LGBTQIA+ family:
Alfie Ordinary @alfieordinary / Dolly Rocket @ilovebertie / Ebony Rose Dark @ebony_rose_dark / Emily @emilymeowwww / Joe Black @misterjoeblack / Kathy Caton MBE @brightonginstergramkathy / Kevin Prince @kevsterprince / Miss Disney @thatluggagelesbian / Rococo Chanel @rococo_chanel / Xandice Armah @xzandj
Also to David, Kate and everyone at the Royal Pavilion / Brighton Museums.
©2026 Chris Jepson
Solo portraits from the shoot are also on display for Brighton Artists Open Houses exclusively at 9 Queens Brighton.
In Regency England, the ton – drawn from the French le bon ton, meaning good style and good manners – was the name given to the ruling class of high society. Wealthy aristocrats who set the standards for fashion, behaviour and social standing. Those who decided who belonged and who did not.
Brighton has always had a complicated relationship with that world. The Prince Regent brought his court here, and with it all the rituals of inclusion and exclusion that defined the era. But Brighton also became something else: a place where the rules bent, where the unconventional found room to breathe.
The Brighton Ton reclaims that title. The people photographed here are the arbiters of a different kind of style – one built not on wealth or bloodline, but on authenticity, courage and the refusal to disappear. They set no dress codes and impose no season. What they share is the quality that le bon ton always claimed to prize, but rarely practised: the confidence to be exactly who you are.
This is Brighton society. On its own terms.
The Brighton Ton by Chris Jepson is on show at 9 Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3WA, throughout May 2026
along side:
Mackenzie Scott Clowes
Pearl Bates
Dominic McGuire
Limited edition prints are available to purchase through my website shop here.
