Elena Velez Is Reimagining Femininity For 2022

Velez has achieved this imaginative and prescient by mixing ethereal silhouettes with brawny supplies that hail from her Midwestern roots, a course of that began in school when Velez closely researched post-World Warfare II industrial collapse and stored bumping into her hometown, Milwaukee. “I knew that I wished to do one thing with metallic and metal, however didn’t know that I wished to do wearables till just a little bit additional on within the course of,” she remembers. “However I obtained to truly go residence over Christmas break [during college] and collaborate with native metalsmiths to actually recontextualize this craft that’s so inherent to the place that I come from.” These supplies seem in each utilitarian and ornamental methods in her work. For instance, a spring 2023 costume, worn just lately by Rosalía on the 2022 International Citizen Competition, featured an summary metallic corset and a bustle harking back to the Gilded Age. “There’s positively an aggressively delicate part to the best way that the work is created,” says Velez.