Growing up, my parents’ livelihood was dependent on sewing and fabric. My mother ran a crafts and fabric shop and my father worked in Manhattan’s garment district. We always had fabric around the house. It was the norm to have cloth that ranged in type, color and texture laying around the house. During my first year farming, after coming across a gigantic six-foot-tall overgrown chard plant, it was no surprise that my first thought was, “I wonder if I could sew a dress out of that?” If you are not familiar with chard, specifically, the variety known as Swiss chard, then let me enlighten you as to how colorful and deeply textured it is. The spine of the leaf can be yellows, oranges and pinks.

The green of the leaf is a very deep green with lots of undulating pockets. So, I did just that, I sewed a very rudimentary dress out of it and asked my new farming friend, Hannah, if she would wear it so that I could photograph her. She did and my decades long series called Fashion in the Raw was born.

Since then, I have designed over 70 wearable fashions, including having two live shows where people could interact with the models as they walked around. This series is an exploration into the fragile nature of designs that are not meant to last. It is the literal interpretation of “fashion here today, gone tomorrow.”

My process starts in a farmers’ field, where I look for what has been left behind. Farming and harvesting food presents lots of “leftovers” that most people would not necessarily recognize and this is where my designs are born. After sewing, weaving, braiding, or knotting the particular material, I then drape and dress onto a specially picked model. And finally, I photograph the end result and this becomes the only evidence of what will eventually be discarded into the compost pile to decay.