School of Apparel Design & Development

When I was 5 years old, I had a Juki sewing machine and sewed through my middle finger. I was curious to see how it sewed…let’s say it left a mark forever. My mother influenced my sewing skills. She worked for Jansport bags, and when she wasn’t doing that, she would make dresses to go to parties. I figured I could do the same, but with my own style of fashion, incorporating my reality of life and expressing it in garments.

My garments express early memories in life, as a 2nd generation kid here in America raised by my mom. Old brown housing projects, they were worn down with bullet holes and graffiti. The neighborhood kids were riding bikes with a boombox on their shoulders and listening to hip hop. Being picked on growing up, being Cambodian, the teachers elementary to high school would make me feel out of place. I was getting in trouble for things I never did. After a while I understood the reasons for this continuous cycle.

I want to engage with peoples’ past and pain and represent the redemption in garments.