I have always been passionate about fashion and want to continue this love into my career by becoming a fashion designer. I hope to create something people haven't seen before. While every upcoming designer says this, I have devoted years perfecting my craft and believe I have something to offer for the world when it comes to fashion. I love history and reading. I love making meaningful art that can ignite insightful and philosophical conversations about religion, the human psyche, love, and mental health. And I want my clothes to provoke thought by others. I want my clothes to not only be beautifully crafted and pleasing to the eye, but I want layers of symbolism and motifs to be present and can be studied and interpreted by the person wearing them. I am writing half the story through my clothes, and it is up to the wearer to continue and finish that story. Clothes are what you make of them, some can purely be for aesthetic purposes, while others can change lives. For me, it is important to maintain a perfect balance between the two. I am able to do this as having fun as an artist and a thinker, drawing inspiration from common things such as movies, music, and history we all have learned; I want to interpret them in a way no one has thought of before. And being an artist, I am able to create visual motifs that represent these ideas. And being a designer, I am able to cohesively include these in clothes and not only create visually stunning looks, but intellectually digestible pieces.

My goal is to become a fashion designer and have my own brand one day. I hope to create something people haven't seen before. While every upcoming designer says this, I have devoted years perfecting my craft and believe I have something to offer for the world when it comes to fashion. I love history and reading, I love making meaningful art that can ignite insightful and philosophical conversations about religion, the human psyche, love, and mental health. And I want my clothes to provoke thought by others. I want my clothes to not only be beautifully crafted and pleasing to the eye, but I want layers of symbolism and motifs to be present and can be studied and interpreted by the person wearing them. I am writing half the story through my clothes, and it is up to the wearer to continue and finish that story. Clothes are what you make of them, some can purely be for aesthetic purposes, while others can change lives. For me, it is important to maintain a perfect balance between the two. I am able to do this as having fun as an artist and a thinker, drawing inspiration from common things such as movies, music, and history we all have learned; I want to interpret them in a way no one has thought of before. And being an artist, I am able to create visual motifs that represent these ideas. And being a designer, I am able to cohesively include these in clothes and not only create visually stunning looks, but intellectually digestible pieces.

My goal is to become a fashion designer and have my own brand. By becoming a designer, I hope to create something people haven't seen before. While every upcoming designer says this, I have devoted years perfecting my craft and believe I have something to offer for the world when it comes to fashion. I love history and reading, I love making meaningful art that can ignite insightful and philosophical conversations about religion, the human psyche, love, and mental health. And I want my clothes to provoke thought by others. I want my clothes to not only be beautifully crafted and pleasing to the eye, but I want layers of symbolism and motifs to be present and can be studied and interpreted by the person wearing them. I am writing half the story through my clothes, and it is up to the wearer to continue and finish that story. Clothes are what you make of them, some can purely be for aesthetic purposes, while others can change lives. For me, it is important to maintain a perfect balance between the two. I am able to do this as having fun as an artist and a thinker, drawing inspiration from common things such as movies, music, and history we all have learned; I want to interpret them in a way no one has thought of before. And being an artist, I am able to create visual motifs that represent these ideas. And being a designer, I am able to cohesively include these in clothes and not only create visually stunning looks, but intellectually digestible pieces.

Growing up in a conservative white town has taught me to focus on my differences from a young age. Though I am biracial, my father being Italian and my mother Filipino, I am not white passing. I have tan olive skin, thick curly hair, and many of my mother's Asian features. Compared to my blonde and fair skinned peers, I always stuck out and tried to conform to their beauty standards. I religiously straightened my hair, always stayed out of the sun, and even attempted to bleach my hair blonde. These differences only grew when I started exploring my sexuality and queer identity. I felt like a stranger in my own town, school, and even home. My mother stressed that I became like my friends, she brought me to the hair salon to bleach my hair and multiple perms to keep my hair straight. Being an immigrant, she also faced struggles of microaggressions and being looked over because of her race and didn't want me to face the same issues. But when it came to my sexuality, I knew my Christian parents would not be supportive. I was in this awkward limbo my whole childhood, unsure of what I was. Though I was half white, I wasn't accepted by my Asian or white peers. Because I wasn't "Asian" or "white" enough I was excluded and didn't know how to identify because I didn't belong to either group. And though I still liked males, I wanted to venture outside of the heterosexual norm and experiment with women and non binary individuals, and even in the LGBTQIA+ community, many pushed me away because they didn't believe I "committed" to being queer. But I realized I became obsessed with labels and belonging, I was in constant search of having a definitive identity that could not be questioned. I wanted to be with people like me, just like how the Asian, white, and queer kids had each other. But everyone is different, and though these superficial labels give us a false sense of belonging, it all boils down to who you are as a person. I shouldn't be searching for other half white half Asian queer kids or assigning myself labels to identify as, because they don't matter. People take comfort in their labels, but I believe they are restrictive. I overcame my struggles with not belonging by disregarding labels altogether, and living my life without worrying about conforming to a label or group of people. It is a realization I wish I came to sooner, and hope that others can learn from my experience to avoid the feelings of not being enough. Labels are confining, and we shouldn't keep ourselves within the standards of said label. I hope to enforce this belief for others through fashion. Fashion is notorious for its labels and being discriminatory, but we are entering a new era of inclusiveness and breaking out of norms that were set decades ago, and I hope to further contribute to this. Clothing shouldn't be grouped by gender, aesthetic, or body type; it should be worn and celebrated by all. I want to create garments that anyone could feel comfortable wearing, I'm not designing for a specific audience, I'm designing for people to enjoy and feel confident and express themselves without labels.

My parents have never supported my creative endeavors, from as young as I could remember they pushed me towards more technical careers such as engineering or nursing. My mother emphasized this, being a Filipino immigrant, her American dream was to have her daughter become a doctor. They saw my inclination to the arts from a young age and heavily discouraged it. While my mother stuck to just vocalizing her opinion on my wishes to become a fashion designer, my father's silent but effective approach was to clip out newspaper articles for me. He would leave them on my dresser before he left for work and highlight or circle them to ensure that even if I didn't read the whole article I got the main message, not to pursue an artistic career. I succumbed to this pressure, caving into their wishes I promised them I would attend medical school and become a psychiatrist. But as my junior year I progressed I realized that I could not imagine being anything other than a fashion designer. I abandoned all my plans of entering the medical career and began working tirelessly on my portfolio to get into the top fashion schools in the country. I had a creative block at first, unsure of how to even start because for the last few years I suppressed my creativity. I felt like I had been robbed of years of possible artistic development and that I was extremely behind. Despite this feeling, I was excited to start paving the way to my dreams and finally living life on my own account. This is what inspired the first piece I created for my portfolio, entitled Young Again, uses the same newspaper clippings my father cut out for me years ago. I've held all to them for all this time, their words restricting me from following my passion and giving them power over my life. I pasted them over the canvas where I had painted a child-like self portrait where I am surrounded by flowers to demonstrate how the wishes of my parents overshadowed my own. But through those clippings, parts of the under painting are shown. On top of the clippings are flowers, the outside of the flower is a deep blood red surrounding a white center. They are made out of paper, and are meant to be my response to the clippings my father gave me. The petals crumple and fall down the painting revealing the blooming white center that encompasses my innocence. I am living my childhood dreams of becoming a designer and now they bloom over the discouragement I faced over my parents. Young Again is my first and favorite piece of my portfolio as I believe it captures my struggle and passion for my artistry. I have fought to be able to create my art and now I am able to live out my dreams and carve out my own life outside of what is conventional.

I am entering the field of fashion design with the end goal of having my own boutique filled with my original designs. I have always been creative as a child, painting on my walls and filling notebooks with drawings. I experimented with all art forms, writing, painting, drawing, graphic design, even pottery. But fashion design has stuck with me and proved to not just be a hobby. It is a passion that I am eager to turn into a career. I took up sewing my freshmen year of high school and have grown incredibly as a designer. Over quarantine during the pandemic, with all my free time I began to sew clothes I designed and ran a small business selling them. By becoming a fashion designer, I hope to create something people haven't seen before. While every upcoming designer says this, I have devoted years perfecting my craft and believe I have something to offer for the world when it comes to fashion. I love history and reading, I love making meaningful art that can ignite insightful and philosophical conversations about religion, the human psyche, love, and mental health. And I want my clothes to provoke thought by others. I want my clothes to not only be beautifully crafted and pleasing to the eye, but I want layers of symbolism and motifs to be present and can be studied and interpreted by the person wearing them. I am writing half the story through my clothes, and it is up to the wearer to continue and finish that story. I have taken much inspiration from the late fashion icon, Lee Alexander McQueen. He was a true visionary and took the world by storm with the eccentricity of his creations. His work extended outside the fashion community and everyone associated him with the bizarre nature of his clothes, but past his notorious runway shows, I loved taking apart the message he conveyed through his clothing. Like him, I want my collections to be overflowing with meaning and breaking out of what society deems normal. He did not take fashion too seriously, and I am a firm believer in it. Clothes are what you make of them, some can purely be for aesthetic purposes, while others can change lives. For me, it is important to maintain a perfect balance between the two. I am able to do this as having fun as an artist and a thinker, drawing inspiration from common things such as movies, music, and history we all have learned; I want to interpret them in a way no one has thought of before. And being an artist, I am able to create visual motifs that represent these ideas. And being a designer, I am able to cohesively include these in clothes and not only create visually stunning looks, but intellectually digestible pieces. I am eager to start my journey as a designer, and even more eager to show the world what I have to offer.