THIS IS: DANIELA’S STORY

The Story Behind My Lingerie Collection wabi-sabi - By Daniela Alvarez Montes

My name is Daniela Álvarez , I’m from Mexico City and I’m a fashion student. A few months ago I had to come up with an idea for my thesis. The brief I got was to do a lingerie collection that would contribute to one of the seventeen objectives from the United Nations. I chose goal number three: Health and Wellness. As a woman, I have been hunted by stereotypes throughout my whole life, but having “the perfect body” is the one that has grown inside my brain, turned into a nightmare throughout my everyday life and harmed my health.

It was during my teenage years that the idea of losing weight and achieving a slim and toned body became a dangerous obsession that drove me to overthink everything I ate. I would even count the amount of calories I burned and the amount of calories I ingested. I also used to torment myself with awful thoughts of how horrible my body was and constantly compared it with other women’s bodies. Instead of loving and accepting my body; I pointed out every imperfection and flaw I could see because it didn’t look the way society expected it to be. I remember being told, at age sixteen, by one of my doctors that I needed to lose weight, not because I was overweight, but because I “would look and feel better”. Another anecdote that was engraved to my memory was when I was eighteen: a friend of mine had broken up with his girlfriend and I recall him saying: “Since we broke up she has gained a lot of weight and I’m glad I’m no longer with her.” Even my grandma, who I deeply love, would sometimes make offensive comments about other women’s bodies… So of course I became obsessed with my body! Up to a point that I forgot to love it and hated it instead. I focused on what others wanted and ignored what I wanted and what I needed.

This absurd and obsessive idea of achieving a certain type of body to feel happy, beautiful and complete is fed to our minds everyday mainly through social media; but I understand that all this exists because society has been educated and brainwashed throughout history by ridiculous and unhealthy beauty standards. Today I’m aware that I’m not the only woman feeling insecure of her body and that all those imperfections that I pointed out on my body such as cellulite, stretch marks, body hair, scars, birthmarks… where more perfect than imperfect because I realized that they were perfectly normal to have.

As a result, I decided to give my lingerie collection a different and more uncommon approach to promote self love, health and wellness… I decided to use the female body ‘imperfections’ as the main inspiration to deliver the message that the imperfections of our bodies are perfectly imperfect and that is what makes them beautiful and worthy of being accepted and loved.

I named my collection wabi-sabi which means the beauty of imperfect things. This term comes from the Japanese Art of Impermanence, Andre Juniper defines wabi-sabi as “an intuitive appreciation of ephemeral beauty in the physical World that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the Spiritual World.” I found this term very accurate and beautiful to use because nothing in life is perfect; and imperfections are what makes life so beautiful.

I hope that people experiencing my collection or reading about my journey towards creating it, will embrace their imperfections, as perfections, to love them and accept them as they are. I’m not saying it’s an easy task because I keep struggling everyday trying to accept my body as it is. We might find it easy to criticize our body, but when we understand that it's because of it that we can experience life; it’s easier to love it and accept it as it is. I believe that we should take one day at a time, try to ignore what society thinks beauty is and start loving all that makes us unique.

You can watch Daniela’s beautiful short film about her collection here:

And lastly, DANIELA, what is your perception of beauty?

““Beauty is the authenticity that the soul possesses and our perfectly imperfect bodies are the masterpieces that give life to our being.”

We want to give a huge thanks to Daniela for opening up and sharing her vulnerable, but inspiring relationship with the term beauty. Her extraordinary talent in fashion design and ability to channel her personal experiences into her Lingerie Collection carries a powerful message that truly hits home. Daniela's reminder that our imperfections are the very essence of our perfection is both empowering and liberating.

Follow Daniela here on Instagram @dan.alvareezm