Family Portrait 

In my RISD senior thesis collection, Family Portrait, I chose to explore the narrative of a family through my unique lens. Across these six looks, my goal was to accomplish a collection which felt cohesive in its lack of cohesion. I wanted each look to feel as though it was a distinctly different character, yet also related at its core to the other “members” of its fashion family.

The making of the second half of my collection shifted to accommodate the COVID-19 quarantine. As I finished the remaining looks, the context in which I viewed my collection changed entirely. Due to the cancellation of RISD’s annual senior runway show, I had to discover a way to photograph the collection without access to human models. I ultimately used damaged mannequins that were being discarded by a local mall to create a surreal universe for my collection, dressing these blemished figures and placing them within my childhood home. Suddenly, my environment became my work’s environment, and I realized that perhaps my family’s home had been the reality those characters were meant to live in all along.