Hannah Hu in the Studio with Ops&Ops

What do you get when you put a smokin’ singer-songwriter, a music and fashion photographer and Ops together in a music studio? Our latest shoot.

Hannah Hu is a British-Chinese performer from Bradford who has been writing songs and dreaming of singing since she was a little girl. “I’d hear my sister through the walls singing Whitney Houston and I wanted to sing like that too.”

She studied at Leeds Conservatoire and Goldsmiths College in London and after a chance meeting with Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie got her first intro into the music industry – standing in for Sky Ferreira (who was off filming Twin Peaks). She was just 18.

Hannah moved on to performing with different bands around London, not always finding it easy, but getting noticed. In 2021 following lockdown, she got a DM on Instagram. It came from Terry Hall of The Specials, who told her he “really loved” her voice and wanted her to sing on their upcoming album, Protest Songs 1924-2012.

“My whole world changed again!” Hannah says. “The Specials are my family and I am forever grateful for the experiences we shared together.”

She has opened for Richard Hawley who said she is “my favourite singer at the moment” and recently returned from touring the UK and Europe with I Monster. “It involved lots of travelling and bird watching – particularly storks,” she says. Now she is back and “focusing heavily on writing my first album with producer Dean Honer up in Sheffield.”

Hannah’s musical influences are straight out of the Ops playbook and include girl groups of 60s like The Ronettes, The Shangri-las, The Crystals and French Ye-Ye pop. And with her prevailing 60s vibe she is a tailor-made model for Ops. Wearing a mix of her own outfits and stage clothes with new and vintage pieces from our wardrobe she rocked our loafers and boots.

Photographed by Zac Mahrouche a couple days before he was capturing METTE opening for Taylor Swift, we hope you love the results as much as we do – click through below to shop the looks.

A big thank-you to our friend Alexis Taylor @alexishotchip for the studio space, instruments and tea.
You can find out more about Hannah’s music and listen to her here.