We are in a very interesting time in terms of fashion and gender because every time there is a greater break with binary aesthetics. How do you perceive this situation?
First we have to talk about that fragility of gender, of that sociocultural construction around what gender is expected to be within this sociocultural context, literally being masculine feminine, this binarity of the system. Everything that is being achieved is incredible, but in the end you just have to do it because Bad Bunny has a crop top and is a very famous person and that gives acceptance to a heterosexual man wanting to wear this crop top. I hope it is not a passing fad and that it is a break from this system that was invented. I tell any designer: do it because you really believe in this, not because it will generate more sales or because it is a matter of marketing. At least in fashion, we are wrong to approach it like that.
Dressing in clothes of the wrong gender has been a taboo subject. Now that things are changing, is it still an act of bravery or is it already normal?
Today whoever identifies as a woman and goes out with a miniskirt or something exposed, courage is part of the repercussion of being outside, and will be ready to fight for your body. Society is still very closed to saying absurd things, like “she had a miniskirt and she deserved it”, things like that. It is not true, but in the end you still have to come out with that defense mindset, because you are going to have a lot of comments about your clothing, which is the first contact with the world, your armor. In my experience. Sometimes they ask me how I identify myself. And, I mean, I consider myself a lesbian, but how do I identify myself in the sense of seeing if they tell me he or she, I flow. For me it is very fluid that “today I feel more in contact with my feminine self, today more in contact with my masculine self. Today I sit with both of them in the mix ”, and I feel that every day there is a difference when you wake up in terms of how you dress. It’s about how you feel today even to dress, to comb your hair. I don’t think it’s an act of bravery, it’s like an act of “I give a fuck about the system ”, more than bravery. It is like saying that in this capitalist system our identities are subject to this power. Today I consider myself this person and what other people say does not matter, I am not hurting anyone. And I think that at the end of the day there are basic things about what we have to do as human beings and the rest – if you want to have an open relationship, be with a thousand people – it doesn’t matter. The important thing is what makes you happy, what you feel in contact with that day.
How was it for you to understand that fluency, coming from a country and a very heteronormed education?
I think of when I was much younger, growing up in Mérida, which is very small, very conservative. My first suit was given to me by my dad when I was 12, for some reason. There I became obsessed, I was probably sorry that someone told me “little guy” or “why are you dressed like that?” Imagine growing up with all the ideas of what is correct, what is not correct, what is right, who am I hurting, what not … but they are really impositions with which you grow up, whether it is religion, family, everyone it has the things that bind them. It cost me until I went to study fashion design at the age of 23. There I said: “I don’t understand. Why if I want to wear a suit today, cut my hair much smaller, not wear makeup, I can’t? I’m not hurting anyone. ” You start to remove that blindfold and you are freer. It came to me a little later. Today I do not consider that I have to ask permission from anyone, neither to create nor to dress. I am the person I have to deal with. Sometimes we are our worst demon, not the ones that exist outside.
Many people ask me how my brand was created, and obviously it is a process of a thousand things that are happening here, what I was experiencing, and it is reflected in my work in a very organic way. It’s not like I sat down to say that the brand is going to be in such a way. In fact, it started as men’s clothing, until I said: “what I’m doing is part of my learning”, and little by little the brand’s sizes evolved to genderless, to get to know more about the person who wanted to dress, who used my clothes. Everything is a process.
Right now you are going to participate in What Design Can Do. What caught your attention in this forum?
It is an opportunity so that right now, with everything that is happening – students who cannot go to school, who are on a Zoom system, who are quite frivolous, that in the end, imagine how difficult it is to concentrate. I don’t even want to think about trying to concentrate in my classes, when I was studying, in a camera – I start to think about anxiety, doubts. I had doubts about what I was going to do with my life at that age, and now there are all those doubts about everything that is changing the world in a very strong way: covid, all the restrictions … This generation is experiencing them very strongly because it is being nurtured via Zoom. It is very important to be able to give this type of talks and that many people can access these dialogues. It makes me like giving back at a time when these new generations of creatives need it.