Milena

XOLO

For my final bachelor’s project, I created XOLO a collection that looks into the profound contrast between two worlds: the harsh, grueling reality of migration and the idealized perfection of the so called “American Dream.” It reflects the heartbreaking journey of those who leave behind everything they know their homes, their families, their identities facing unimaginable challenges for the faint hope of something better.

This project is deeply personal. It became a way for me to grapple with the two opposing forces that define this story: the promise of a perfect, unattainable ideal and the raw, painful humanity of those striving toward it. XOLO forced me to deconstruct the rigid ideals of beauty and perfection imposed by society ideals that alienate, reject, and dehumanize. In their place, I began to reconstruct a new understanding of beauty, one rooted in imperfection, vulnerability, and being unapologetically yourself.

XOLO is the tension between hope and despair, the familiar and the grotesque, the idealized and the real. It is about longing for home while trying to build a new one in a foreign land.

The contrast to what seems familiar to us and safe is everything that we hate and is peculiar, grotesque.

Xolo was the journey to myself.

I want to deeply thank, the most genius creative minds my mentors @davithend @airinparty for the guidance through this journey. And my friends/family for the love.

love, Milena <3

model: @irenerizzi
photographer: @artemidianas