Writing Fashion

Writing Fashion explores the dynamic field of Latinx fashion through the lenses of cultural studies and visual culture. Bringing together scholars and writers, it examines how fashion has been approached as a site of identity formation, resistance, and cultural expression. Panelists will discuss key trends, influential texts, and emerging theoretical frameworks—ranging from decolonial critique and embodiment to gender, race, and class analysis—that shape the study of Latinx fashion today. By foregrounding fashion as a powerful mode of visual storytelling, this conversation highlights its role in both challenging and reimagining dominant narratives within and beyond the fashion industry.

Isael Andrade is a cultural researcher, writer, and community maker whose work bridges fashion, identity, and equity. Isael’s research explores the preservation and reading of cultural dress practices within Chicano communities. Highlighting the continuity of cultural values through dress and as a tool that communities use to respond to their social conditions. Isael currently works with the Virgil Abloh “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund to support emerging Black talent in the fashion industry while expanding the Fashion Scholarship Fund's equity initiatives. 

Aída Hurtado is Distinguished Professor and Luis Leal Endowed Chair in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a social psychologist, she applies intersectional feminisms to the areas of Chicana fashion and dance performance. She combines the writings of Black feminist scholars, Chicana feminisms, social identity theory, and Anzaldúa’s Borderland Theory to expand understandings of ethnic, racial, and gender formations. Her books include Intersectional Chicana Feminisms: Sitios y Lenguas (2020), and meXicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction (2020, co-edited with Cantú). Professor Hurtado spoke at the 2017 and 2018 Women’s March.

Kayla Marquez is the fashion director at large for Image. Since working with the magazine, she has styled and fashion-directed some of Image’s most inventive, high-impact shoots, including a feature that recreated the “Homies” figurines in real life and a collaboration with Sister Kokoro that dressed the L.A. Dance Project troupe in L.A. designers. Marquez’s work has appeared in editorials, commercials, music videos and campaigns. In October 2022, Marquez launched Lujo Depot, which she describes as “the first independent online showroom that specializes in renting sustainable and contemporary wear by new and established designers.” The shop launched with an epic zoot suit campaign, for which she gave nine L.A. designers full creative freedom to reimagine the suit. A native of Los Angeles, Marquez is also a costume designer and creative consultant. She seeks to center historically marginalized voices in contemporary fashion and approaches styling as a form of storytelling.

Michelle McVicker is Associate Collections Specialist at the Antonio Ratti Textile Study and Storage Center at The Met. She previously worked at El Museo del Barrio, The Museum at FIT, The Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and The Costume Institute. As a collections care professional, her research interests include how material culture, specifically clothing, embodies Latinx representation within the United States. She has published academically on fashion history, intangible heritage, and how to proactively intervene gaps within museum costume collections.

[Image Credit: Lujo Depot, styled by Keyla Marquez]

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