Danielle Liu (WRA ’22) is creating a line of clothing that combats microaggression.
In a world of expression,
the impacts of trends, fashion, and social norms on any culture are enormous. Danielle Liu (WRA ’22) is addressing social discrimination directly via mainstream culture; she’s creating a line of clothing that,
“tells the stories of social groups that have been discriminated against due to prejudices and microaggression.”
-Danielle Liu
For the past two summers, Danielle has interned at Ray Li magazine, a fashion publication in Beijing, China, where she’s from. She applied for the internship to learn about contemporary fashion trends, but realized quickly that she could both learn about fashion and fight to curb social discrimination through her own project: Beauty in Expression, not Microaggression.
The project began when a friend of Danielle’s reached out to her for consolation:
A man had taken a picture of her as she walked above him, revealing everything underneath her skirt. He was spreading the images across the internet, and the only suggestions she’d received were to wear a longer skirt. Danielle was outraged.
“If I had been a cartoon, my nose would have been spouting enough fire to make s’mores.”
-Danielle Liu
Reacting passionately,
Danielle decided to use her design skills to help. Danielle’s first step was to create a shirt with a picture of a female chicken (a chick) saying, “I prefer woman”, to: “illustrate the proper way to address individual women.” Next she broadened the scope of her clothing line:
“I transformed it to not only focus on feminism, but all aspects of social justice, including racism, homophobia, climate injustice, etc.”
-Danielle Liu
This not only gives Danielle more opportunity for design, but also allows her to address even more equally important issues with her project.
Already working hard on clothing prototypes,
Danielle hosted an interactive event on Saturday, April 30. Inspired by microaggressions (according to a study from Washington University, 90-95% of American citizens have experienced some form of microaggression during their lifetime), Danielle planned to promote the opposite by “assigning colors to different personality identities and giving students the liberty to draw on white t-shirts the trait that made them feel the most proud, or most like themselves. Then, participants would draw on these t-shirts, displaying how they see each other.”
Microaggressions thrive off of prejudice,
and self-deprecation is a direct effect of microaggression — many people struggle with opinions they assume other people have of them as a result.
To show other people how you truly see yourself and then to see how others truly see you in such an artistic way is compelling. Danielle wants “students on my campus to be known as individuals with their unique personality traits rather than as blurred faces who are good at either math or sports.”