Will Humphreys Email & Phone Number

I have lived my entire life in the Deep South. Understanding my identity and how growing up in the South, specifically in an affluent suburb of Jackson, Mississippi, has been an integral component of shifting my world view and bringing to light the innate nuance that exists in social and economic standing. Most are hard pressed to ignore the inequities and inequalities that exist in facets of Southern life, specifically in minority communities, and I have likewise come to recognize the difficulties in loving where I come from while recognizing much work needs to be done. With fashion, I aspire to take the past, present, and future of Southern events and communities and integrate them into tactile, practical garments that nonetheless tell a story and convey a complicated affection for a world so frequently written off as beyond hope. I aim to take influence from historical silhouettes and home sewing techniques in order to reinterpret them through a modern lens and a sense of fondness intended to invoke feelings of pleasantry and nostalgia. Historical references will be adapted into abstract details in order to further enhance my design philosophy of exploring the South through garment construction. Above all else, my aspiration is to examine the traditions of Southern society and culture and deconstruct the ideas of a Southern ideological monolith in order to fully demonstrate its innate beauty and potential for a prosperous future.

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  Auburn University

  Graduate