Through my bag collection, I aim to make visible and valorise forms of labor that are often
precarious, underpaid, and undervalued, predominantly carried out by women,
particularly immigrant women and/or minorities. The notion of overload is central and is
expressed here as a collective reflection: work becomes a weight shared, displaced, and
redistributed among bodies and objects.
The project was born from a desire to break the cycle of overload: an overload of work,
emotions, and expectations that weighs heavily. This feeling, which I carry within myself,
is deeply rooted in my family history and resonates with the collective history of the
country where I was born and raised, Portugal: a people long bent under the weight of
agricultural labor, responsibility, and survival.
The garments, specially the skirt, are inspired by my years spent in a Portuguese folk
dance group that shaped my visual and emotional memory. These references enter into
dialogue with my personal wardrobe and form the basis of a formal language that runs
throughout the collection.
The aim is to open a reflection on work overload and its intimate resonances, while
proposing a vision of collective burden-sharing and the recognition of essential gestures.