Undergraduate Fashion Show Spring 2022

“As a hypersensitive person and designer, I have a strong emotional attachment to clothes. For me, dress is, at its heart, really about memory, meaning, and intimacy. When I was a child, my grandmother first introduced me to second–hand shopping. I always wondered why I felt such fascination for this practice. Now that I’ve done research about it, not only do I understand the impact of practicing recycling in the second largest industry polluter in the world, but significant meaning is found in secondhand clothing. I always imagined the story behind the garments I acquired, and I noticed I selected specific garments to wear on a certain day to match my mood. This was my first encounter with nostalgia in relation to garments. Clothing evokes feeling.
For my launch as a designer, I wanted to translate a feeling to which words only falteringly reach: melancholy. Melancholy is quite a complex concept because it involves sweetness and bitterness at the same time. This feeling lives within my memories of being part of a divorced family, moving to a new country, and experiencing the grief of losing my grandmother as a child. These experiences have involved bitterness but sweetness and blessings as well, which is why I feel like this collection reflects my most intimate honesty. I took a journey to my past throughout my creative process. I listened to all the songs that brought back a certain feeling or moment. I kept a journal to document memories, sensations, and define the meaning of nostalgia for me. I revised drawings I made as a child and took shapes found in these to manipulate into sculptural pieces. I found deep inspiration in letters my mother wrote to her grandmother when she was little. The memory of these women accompanied me throughout the process, and I hope they are proud of the outcome wherever they may be.
My collection, Saudade (melancholy in Portuguese), is also inspired by designers and artists I admire such as Cristobal Balenciaga, Issey Miyake, Isamu Noguchi, and Ruth Asawa. I honor their work and thank them for their brutal inspiration.”