Desire Paths

2025

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The ‘desire path’ is a small, unplanned trail that emerges through repeated erosion from human and animal traffic. Desire paths often exist in contradiction to an established, intentionally built pathway, and their existence demonstrates our human tendency to follow our nature and express our individuality, despite whatever established pathways, systems, norms, and institutions may already exist. The attitude of following one’s own desire path is built into the culture and sport of snowboarding. Snowboarding emerged from a desire of the boardsports community to get involved with snowsports and resulted in them creating this new sport that disrupted the established world of skiing. Furthermore, the sport itself requires athletes to forge their own path, requiring them to find their own line in the snow and to explore and move as they wish amongst an open playground of terrain.

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This collection is inspired by the experience of watching a great snowboarding film, characterized by two competing emotions: first, disappointment and regret at not having the skill to perform at such a high level; second, immense aspiration and inspiration, the belief that you can one day reach that level.  The tension between these two feelings is best captured by the moment that the athlete floats mid-air. In that moment, the viewer imagines a seemingly endless number of pathways and opportunities that the athlete can follow – inspiring an endless number of pathways and opportunities available to the viewer themself, as well. 

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Inspired by the golden spiral, I developed a system of pattern making that draws from the spiral shape to create voluminous, rounded, flowing structures. Though spiral-shaped when flat, the
garments are brought to life when worn on the body in motion. The desire path is also built into each garment through snaps, zipper, and reversible designs, which allow the wearer to manipulate and rearrange as desired.

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See the curated process book.

Read my full designer statement.