Rey Barrientes is a fashion designer and SAIC graduate based in Chicago. Coming from a diverse background, Rey’s work focuses on the importance of intersectionality and its lived experiences through the reinvention of traditional utilitarian garments into elegant forms that break down traditional boundaries between gender, class, and culture.
The heart of their practice stems from their upbringing as a child of laborers, merged with their experience living with a hybrid identity and ambivalence it had carried in the earlier years of their life growing up mixed race and queer in challenging social and economical environments. An integral part of this is their incorporation of and focus on using natural materials such as silk, wool, leather, and cellulose-based fibers within the garments.
During their undergraduate studies in the fashion department at SAIC, they found themselves gravitating towards natural materials; finding new ways to manipulate and develop these textiles and to use them as a form of sustainability within their practice. Along with this was the love of working with others of various backgrounds and hybrid identities as these experiences further shaped the message of their work as it is their goal is to use their platform as a designer to highlight and allow others to understand and explore intersectional experiences that are often not showcased in mainstream social environments.
