Influences

I am inspired by emotions; by the female gaze; by the beauty that empathy creates.

I am inspired by representations of the multi-dimensional. I remember the first time i watched a fashion show on Youtube. I was about 14 years old and on the cusp of womanhood, still figuring out my identity and sense of belonging. Chanel’s 2011 Metiers d’Art show – brimming with Indian-inspired French opulence – was unlike anything i had ever seen in my rural Appalachian town. I’m multicultural, Colombian-American, and i have always been entranced by contradictions and the melding of uncommon pairs. From then on, fashion became much more than a hobby to me. It became a window to a luxe world where cultures are blended – from the very root of the fibers that make up garments to the international models who wear them. Fashion became an expression of a day-to-day, instant-to-instant feeling that i hoped to translate into a career.

Looking back on Chanel’s 2011 show, it was brimming with cultural appropriation: primarily white models donning Indian-inspired garments and adornments, a European audience, juxtaposition against an opulent Versailles-style dining table. I reflect in discomfort and with renewed inspiration. There is often a fine line between cultural appropriation and inspiration; I’m determined to foster environments and systems in which the diversity of our people is celebrated and uplifted with respect and without exploitation.