Cornell's FSAD Program Anonymous

Riding the elevator down into the aquarium, with the azure shadows refracting off my body, I had never been so alive. Immersed in the aura of the thousands upon millions species of fish, I felt like I was staring right into my own soul and beyond it, until my own being was suffused with the creatures swarming behind glass. All this I’d record in my sketchbook, letting the ideas build and collide, emerge and fade. The thoughts, through time and imagination, become my illustrations. From this oceanic trip emerged a translucent turquoise dress design, made of fish bones and mirror pieces.

Sometimes a friend would ask, what was your inspiration? I’m not really sure how to answer. To be honest, I don’t often find conceptual disparity between visual art and poetry. Like a never-ending dialogue, each dimension influences and informs the other. My urge to create, or express, is exhaling all that is within me. And by designing garments, I crystallize that exhalation and consolidate it into emotion. I’m constantly intrigued by visual art with the power to tell poignant tales, like cohesive fashion collections or graphic novels. Equally fascinated with form, with the profoundly infinite architecture of human visual-art, I desperately...