We’re entering a new area of transparency and verticality at work. November is a month of experimentation at Prairie Underground. Last year’s collaboration with design duo FEMAIL informed a new way of working. Those reconstructed garments became instructors suggesting a new methodology.

This year we invited writer and activist Kim Selling into our design process to co-direct our first look on a size 26 fit model. The resulting top and jumpsuit are open-sized and constructed in sheer silk organza to suggest architectural shaping and luxurious self-acceptance as strategies for getting dressed.

“The garments are intended to embolden anyone who has felt marginalized because of their body, whether it’s for their size, ethnicity, ability, age, gender, or otherwise. I want every marginalized person to feel free to inhabit their self and their body with gratifying intentionality.

As a fat queer person, I am told to be smaller, less visible, to shrink myself until I am palatable. I reject that. I reject downsizing, minimalism, and the small bodies that come with small-mindedness. I have the capacity to be both ephemeral and solid, to own my outline with compassion and pride, to not allow anyone to define my body as something not worth adorning or celebrating.

We are capable of being more than one thing, more than simply a physical body. The pieces showcased here are meant to both expose and empower; regardless of your size or shape, these garments will collaborate with you to create evanescent architectural movements, as if you were a celestial body moving through space, swathed only in dark matter.”

– Kim Selling