Shaqui Reed — Experimental Fashion Editorial

Collaborated with Chicago-based artist and fashion designer Shaqui Reed alongside model Jai Gutierrez to create an editorial fashion photography series centered around texture, identity, and experimental garment construction. The project featured Reed’s sculptural and culturally driven designs, including For The Culture: Product Jacket — a statement piece constructed with barrettes, synthetic hair, translucent materials, and layered textures inspired by Black beauty culture and childhood nostalgia. The visual direction blended fashion editorial photography with documentary-inspired storytelling, focusing on material detail, silhouette, and atmosphere while allowing the garments themselves to function as conceptual art pieces. One of the photographed garments, For The Culture: Product Jacket, was later featured in EXPO Chicago 2023 as part of Reed’s continued artistic exhibition work. Select imagery from the collaboration was also considered for inclusion in Picturing Black Girlhood: Moments of Possibility, an upcoming Aperture publication exploring portraiture, memory, beauty, identity, and representation through the lens of Black girlhood and contemporary photography. Created during Reed’s time studying at Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the collaboration explored the intersection of fashion, culture, identity, and visual storytelling through an elevated editorial lens.