Hello there! I’m Jaime and I’m a fourth year student at the University of Toronto, specializing in English and minoring in visual arts. Though I find delight in a good David Mamet play and have a nasty little penchant for constructing surrealist collages out of religious propaganda and Teen Vogue horoscopes, I also know the value of a robust co-curricular life. This year, I’m enjoying singing soprano I in U of T’s one and only a cappella jazz choir (tenderly referred to as Onoscatopoeia) as well as performing in two student-run improv troupes on campus.
I’m also honoured to act as both creative director and designer for the Victoria College Environmental Fashion show, which is U of T’s sole fashion show devoted to promoting social and environmental justice. This year’s show takes inspiration from unapologetically femme ideals and aesthetics as they apply to all genders and identities. The theme, which closely aligns with my own philosophy of fashion, both celebrates and relates critically to a hyperfeminine materialism and its dazzling excess of textures, colours, and sensory experiences. Flamboyant and fantastical fashion has long been a medium through which anyone can appropriate biblical, historical, and mythological icons, reclaiming and recontextualizing them. The show borrows from artists like Prince, John Waters, Pierre et Gilles and Madonna, as well as Instagram personas like @baddiewinkie, @mewnettelapalmew and @hayleyelsaesser who each uniquely embody this democratic process of self-deification and self-expression.
My explorations in fashion and visual art centre on a lifelong obsession with themes of nostalgia, temporality, perception, and the fallacy that femininity and feminism are inherently at odds. I am also interested in the medium of documentary film and similarly collaborative, chance-oriented art forms. During this semester with College Fashionista, I look forward to sharing with you campus fashion that is just as diverse and original as the student body itself.
