This look was born from a class project guided by my incomparable mentor, Jerome Dillinger. The task was to dissect Fernand Lungren’s In the Café and recreate its essence with historical accuracy while crafting a modern narrative. In studying Victorian patternmaking, I learned how to sculpt a silhouette that echoes the past yet speaks fiercely to the present, how to shape a modern woman into the illusion of another era without dimming her truth.

In this look, she sits draped in red not for the gaze of others, but as an act of remembering. The headwrap becomes a crown honoring the women whose brilliance was once legislated into silence, who folded defiance into every knot of fabric. The sculpted hips pay quiet tribute to Sarah Baartman, reclaiming what was once exploited and restoring it as a symbol of power, presence, and prophecy.