Nunca fui lo que tengo

The brief

A comprehensive narrative and fashion design project exploring identity built from garments and objects rather than declarations—what people wear, what they keep, and what quietly says more about them than anything they’d choose to say out loud. The project encompassed a complete creative cycle: from the conceptualization and custom design of the garments to the photographic direction and editorial narrative. The title came first: never what I have. Everything else was built to earn it.

The challenge

Designing garments and photographing belongings without slipping into either of two easy traps: poverty aesthetics that turn real lives into a mood board, or nostalgia that flattens specific people into a generic past. The garments and objects had to stay deeply personal and narrative-driven. The project couldn’t borrow their weight without naming where it came from.

Garments and objects don’t need a caption to argue. They just need to be looked at long enough.

The approach

I led the entire creative pipeline, designing custom garments that embodied memory and identity before styling and capturing them. Captions were kept minimal on purpose, the visual evidence and textile choices carried the weight before any explanatory layer got added on top. Each subject was photographed in their own space, with their own light, ensuring the fashion design felt rooted in authentic context. The sequencing built a slow rhythm rather than a clear argument, asking the viewer to sit with contradiction instead of resolving it for them.

The outcome

A complete conceptual body of work integrating garment design, documentary photography, and visual editing. What stays with people isn’t a thesis about identity, it’s specific garments and objects in a specific light that refuse to be generic. That refusal is the point.