SANDRA (she/her)
Born in Viña del mar, Chile, Sandra arrived in Montréal at the best (and worst) possible times, in her teens. As many first and second generation immigrants, she is neither from here nor there, and has always openly advocated for being different and for unicity as an individual. An eternally changing soul, she tried many fields looking for fulfillment, pursuing studies from fashion design to entrepreneurship, passing by a few gender studies credits.
She's been working in fashion, wearing several hats, from plus size fit modeling to fit technician for many years. Lately, Sandra has been focusing on combining her biggest passions: curating preloved garments, entrepreneurship and fat acceptance, founding the first plus size pre-owned fashion store in Montréal, Mala Mtl, which brings her fat joy, a sense of community and purpose.
What detail of your practice do you always try to put forward?
Curiosity and humility are core values that help me get up from bed every morning and learn from my own work everyday. Curiosity is essential for any artist in practice, but also as an honest learning individual and in society as an evolving machine. By being a curious kid we get to discover ourselves and our passions and by being a curious adult we learn to get rid of our judgements; we can explore, learn and evolve as humans and as a community with humility and curiosity. Curiosity is being able to think outside of narrow standards, is to exist outside of the norms of society and is what leads to great ideas, acceptance and to freedom. We have the privilege to be able to explore and to express this freedom, we must profit from this chance and do it unapologetically in our own unique way.
Photos by and/or for Lachapelle Atelier, BeautiesLab, Marie Laure, Bianca Lasenzarino