About Me
Alina is currently an Associate Designer at Royal Robbins where she designs outdoor apparel for men and women. She has six years of experience in the industry; she previously worked as a women’s designer at Mata Traders and interned at Maria Pinto, both in Chicago, and Araks, in New York City. She graduated with a BFA in Fashion Design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017 and previously studied psychology and painting at Carnegie Mellon University.
A more extensive resume can be found here.
ABOUT MY WORK
Our clothes are museums of memory, their stains and wrinkles equivalent to the scars on our bodies. Both carry stories through the preservation of wear, movement, and trauma. We care for our clothes, empathize with our clothes, and refuse to throw our clothes away. Sometimes we are better able to care for our clothes than our own selves. Our clothes are silent companions in some of our most intimate moments. Revisiting them can feel like seeing a long-ago friend; like reconnecting with a former self. At low moments, I have turned to my clothes to transform me into a self I long to be. When I have lost sense of who I am, trying on an outfit has grounded me with a simple thought: “This is me.” When our skin seems too small to house our expansive selves, our multitudes, we often turn to garments to carry the rest.
How important must it be, then, to be mindful of what we create for others to wear? At the same time, how important must it be, then, to allow joy to seep into our work? To allow it to coil itself along every spun yarn, weave itself into the very fabric of the clothing we create? If I am to be the hands that create the work of the little world of you that you carry on your shoulders what else can I contribute but this: to be careful, to be considerate, to be observant, and to always capture moments of glee.
In practice, this is how it works: I take fashion seriously, consider fit carefully, work towards more ethical and sustainable business practices, imagine your lived experience and how I can make you more confident or more comfortable, and always ask myself, “Why this, now?” I also illustrate textiles with buoyancy, always experiment with material, play with scale, adopt a maximalist’s palette, and follow freezing doubt with the freeing question, “Why not?”
Someone once told me that she spent every day walking around the world waiting to be delighted. Now, I find myself doing the same: exploring the world, waiting to be delighted, and finally bringing that delight back into my work, back to you.