We are very curious to know if you can remember the first dress/product you designed, how old were you and how was it?

The first costume of this kind I designed was an interpretation of a baroque silhouette, part of a school assignment. The students were supposed to construct a garment using unorthodox materials, with a common result of a big accessory more than ‘clothes’ per se, being the wearability through the whole body the most defiant goal. I know a few knitting techniques, so as we weren’t able to use fabric I decided to construct my material out of discarded plastic bags rather than purchase or collect random elements, giving me also the possibility to create something with the requirements I decided or taking advantage of the material itself and the new one created once knitted.

Your pieces are considered “Wearable Installations” whilst incorporating fair and ethical principles of sustainability: Reuse, Repurpose, Remake and Create Zero Waste. When did you set out on this path? Is it something that you’ve always wanted to do or was there a life-changing moment or an event or a realisation that made you completely change focus and pursue the impact-driven path that you're on now?

 I was in my third year of university and I was 26 years. I believe in a sort of karma, causality, subconscious wisdom or emotional intelligence, that places us sometimes through the course of our lives, on a non-planned path. My experience was to end up suddenly studying design. At first, scarcity was an issue so it felt obvious to find free materials, later the lack of money to purchase fabrics combined with previous successful projects made a natural strategy and part of the statement, the fact of creating something beautiful out of garbage, or obsolete materials that would end being part of the massive pollution of a society leaning relentlessly to unsustainable consumerism. 

The fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters and the biggest example of excessive and non-stop mass production, which sole purpose becomes to be consumed rather than serve its utilitarian objective. An undeveloped country can be a discouraging environment for an industrial designer and becomes a challenge due to the obstacles of an under-equipped and almost non-existing industry. I began to work for audiovisuals, video clips, short films, commercials and cinema as a costume designer and art director and the set decoration was an additional narrative version of interior design. 

The audiovisual industry as well as theatre became the art scene where I could work as much as multitasking, kept me thinking out of the box and recycling and up-cycling, with sometimes an even superior result regarding aesthetics. Working for theatre kept me creating this sort of character, with an increasing theatrical scale and dramatism, in which the material becomes the main role. To summarise, in a way, it just happened as I became more aware of the process itself, and the messages transmitted by the result, which brought eventually made more powerful pieces.

How has your artwork evolved or changed through the years?

For me is difficult to evaluate my process, and at the same time, it becomes an obstacle to overcome through the conscious exercise of the task. Whether successful or objectively accomplished, I can only say that as organic and extravagantly laborious ideas, became a statement, the construction, the act of creation, guided by the material and its properties, became the muse of each piece. I stopped sketching at some point, and let myself be driven by the potential offered by the material or the object I was working with, rather than be self-mutilated by a written-in-stone idea, crossing the threshold to a never disappointing world of experimentation. Embrace the mistake and allow the materials to flow using them more efficiently, whilst they become something they were not created for, or acquire new properties, just letting myself go, is something slowly discovered and accepted as a unique feature of the pieces. Before I had a more naive approach, but mote self-awareness and time, have made me enjoy and be fulfilled, with the act of creation and exploration processes regardless of the result. 

Is an acceptance I have made peace with, by doing so. Is hard to deconstruct something that is more a feeling for me. Introspection, alienation and loneliness, permeated by the desire for constant connection, as a dialectic core that drives the creative process and life itself, is an inseparable part of the constant exploration of materials and imagined silhouettes, which take on a life of their own and decide their path on the object imagery.