Latinx and Latin American Fashion at the front

My work explores the politics and poetics of Latinx and Latin American fashion, dress, and visual and material cultures. I specialize in critical fashion studies, with a particular focus on archives, museums, representation, and the intersections of race, class, and coloniality across the Americas. I study the colonial legacies of fashion and the critical spaces for its decolonization.

I am a PhD candidate in Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a Designated Emphasis in History of Art and Visual Culture. I hold an M.A. in Cultural Studies from Universidad de los Andes and a B.A. in Sociology from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

I am the author of Nostalgias y Aspiraciones (2021) and the editor and author of Estudios de la Moda en Colombia (2022), the first volume dedicated to fashion studies in Colombia. As a writer and cultural critic, my essays have appeared in Harvard Review of Latin America, The Latinx Project, El País, El Malpensante, Arcadia, Cartel Urbano, and Cerosetenta. 

As a public scholar, I co-created  Nación Moda, a podcast on fashion and culture, developed the first Diploma in Critical Fashion Studies in Latin America, and championed the first courses on the history of Latin American fashion. I also contribute to radio, television, podcasts, and digital media, bringing critical conversations on fashion, culture, and representation to broader publics. My interest in collaborative and socially engaged scholarship has also led me to participate in curatorial, artistic, and co-creative initiatives, including the Viscose Syllabus and the fashion co-creation project Jardines.

My work has been recognized with fellowships and awards including the Chancellor's Fellowship at UCSC, an Andrew Mellon Foundation Grant for Expanding Latinx Studies, the Crossing Latinidades Mellon Fellowship, the Mayfield Scholarship, the College Art Association Travel Award, the Decorative Arts Trust Research Grant, the Dolores Huerta Research Center Research Grant, the First Generation Research Award, the Lionel Cantú Memorial Award; the Academic Excellence Scholarship from Universidad de los Andes, the Photography Research Scholarship from Colombia's Ministry of Culture, the Colciencias Young Researchers Grant, the award for Best Undergraduate Thesis in Sociology from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and second place in the Emecé–IDARTES National Novel Contest.