Daniela Campos and her fashion for diverse bodies | Sunday | The Republic
Daniela (22) is having a plaster cast taken out of her left foot. Someone smears the white paste on the languid extremity of the young woman. He lets it dry, makes an opening with a scalpel, opens it, removes it. Daniela records the entire procedure with her cell phone. Then he will edit the video, put a chill out track in the background and upload it to his YouTube channel where it will appear along with other videos in which he is seen doing his beauty routine, designing his clothes, training in archery, talking about self-love. .
Daniela Campos is an active centennial like any of her generation, except that she was born with a special condition, with spina bifida, which is when the spine and spinal cord do not form properly. She came into the world with a small skin bag that protruded from her lower back. The "liquid bag," as he calls it, contained exposed tissue and nerves, so it had to be removed. The surgery left him with a noticeable asterisk-shaped scar.
His condition also caused him to lose mobility in his left foot, which he cannot feel and remains in a permanent plantarflexion position, as if he were ready to try on a new shoe. For this reason, every year, the orthopedic technician takes Dani a new plaster mold from which he will make a new splint, a device made of polypropylene that will fit to keep the ankle and foot rigid, so that he can step and walk. with the help of a cane.
Daniela has had to wear a splint for most of her life and a cane for five years. These orthopedic accessories are part of her daily outfit, she sees them as if they were earrings or necklaces. He gives them an instrumental use, but he also wants to express his identity by showing them. That is why he has intervened in his cane, painting it with curved lines that, he says, symbolize scars or exposed veins. He has done the same with his splint that he boasts about and exhibits.
This Capricorn, a follower of veganism, is today a promise in fashion design and has some things to tell the world, such as that she is not just a girl with a disability, but much more: “I want to be recognized for my designs, which seek promote the inclusion of diverse bodies, people with disabilities, the LGTBQ community, and all minorities that deserve visibility and respect”.
This 2021 pandemic his name has come out of anonymity. She became known on social networks and was invited to model at important fashion events such as 3D Fashion Week -a showcase for new designers-, and in the first edition of Inclusion in Fashion, a show organized by Conadis. He also gave a talk for the day of the person with disabilities under the motto: I will continue designing my future. She was also summoned by the international shoe brand Converse to belong to its community of artists; and this Friday his clothing brand Danic Marz presented his new Interno collection in a charity parade.
There were ten outfits. The garments she made speak of her life story. He used prints that reproduce his x-rays and zigzag stitching that represents medical stitching. His brand logo is the silhouette of his body showing his cane. If Frida Kahlo, of whom Dani has a portrait in her bedroom, painted about her pain and disability, why wouldn't she use these inputs for her art?
Self-knowledge
Fashion has embarked this young woman on a journey of small triumphs and joys, but to get here she had to travel a long and difficult path of acceptance and self-knowledge. “The doctors helped me to recognize what was happening with my body, the physical therapy to know how to keep it fit and healthy, and the psychological therapy to accept it,” she says.
Dani grew up feeling the scrutinizing gazes of others, and when she reached adolescence it was inevitable for her to question her physique. She lived covering her disability for a long time, covering the defects of her body. She camouflaged her splint under long skirts. It was unthinkable to wear a bikini because of the scar on her lower back.
“Acceptance is a complicated process and to save myself that work, I covered myself. I lived ignoring my situation, until I said to myself: Why couldn't I wear shorts or short skirts? I want to show myself, I will never see that person I came across and looked at me again, why do I have to hide?
And once he recognized and accepted her body, he dressed it. In 2017 she began studying fashion design and set up a small sewing workshop in her parents' house in Callao, where she experimented with fabrics, textures and colors that allowed her to express her identity and, above all, gave her comfort: “I wear clothes with elastics, that are not tight, since I am always sitting down to take breaks, they have to be made of cotton and other fabrics that are comfortable”.
This concept of adapting the garment to the body that will wear it was also applied when she made a set of pieces –dress, blouse and top– for a client who suffered from endometriosis: “I prioritized their comfort, that the garments be adjustable and They will not cause any discomfort in the pelvic area”.
This is how this young designer is building her clothing brand, making her designs inclusive for all types of bodies, whether they have a disability or not.
Daniela admires Viktoria Modesta, a famous British dancer and singer who has her left leg amputated below the knee, and wears prosthetics that look like pieces of art, one encrusted with diamonds, the other in the shape of a stake. She “She is a woman with a disability who does not show her disability as a story of overcoming but rather as art. It inspires me,” says Daniela.
A new approach
The young designer does not want her story to be told as a social case: “The media often show disability stories with sad music in the background or people in the foreground with their eyes tearful, when disability is not just that (…) I would like people who approach my story to question the following: they do it because my work really inspires them or they just want to feel sorry for themselves and feel superior. I want to change the chip”.