Redressing Fashion History

**This design scholarship is an ongoing project that forms the foundation of my master’s thesis, which I successfully defended on April 11th, 2025. The complete collection of finished garments and accessories will be exhibited on LSU’s campus from April 21st to May 9th, 2025. An updated version of the accompanying paper will be added to my portfolio closer to graduation this May.

Redressing Fashion History is a collection of eight garments—four historical reinterpretations and four conceptual knitwear pieces—that seeks to disrupt and challenge the Eurocentric narrative of nineteenth-century fashion. By reimagining traditional silhouettes through an Afrocentric lens, this body of work confronts the systemic erasure of Black women in both historical fashion scholarship and early feminist thought. Merging historical inquiry with innovative textile processes, the collection centers Black identity, creativity, and visibility within fashion history, aiming to foster a broader and more inclusive academic discourse.

Each textile print was digitally designed by me, beginning with a process of digitizing my draped and flat-patterned garment pieces. I engineered the prints directly onto these patterns and produced the fabrics myself, using the Digital Textile Printing (DTP) Lab at LSU and through external printing with Contrado. The knit garments were produced using the Shima Seiki knitting machines at LSU.

Explore each look in more detail by clicking the images below.