Artist Statement from Yamil

The collection is inspired by a series of moments I’ve had as a car passenger in the city of Santo Domingo, observing its people, architecture, urban composition, colors and social behavior. I started thinking about these moments and how unique and rich the Dominican identity is when I moved from there to New York City in 2018.

I tried to reposition myself back to Santo Domingo to understand the values and development of Caribbean masculinity, and how it has been shaped through dictatorial governments imposing a masculinity based on excess and western luxury. Denim plays a big part of the collection as it is strongly embedded in Dominican contemporary culture. The colors were inspired by the popular architecture of the city and were blended with traditional garment washes. Tailoring is a huge part of the collection as well, as it’s still a tradition to make your own suits in tropical wool fabrics or wool gabardines.

The photographer Phi Vu and I met every week in New York City for two months to plan how we wanted to portray the scenes of Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic. Most importantly I wanted the photos to reflect daily life, culture, and the way of dressing, so Phi Vu would ask me a lot of questions to gain a better understanding of the collection and the Dominican Republic. Once in Santo Domingo, we had 2 days to shoot and 1 day to scout locations. Changes to the collection had to be made to ensure that it portrayed the energy of the city as much as possible.