In episode 251, Kestrel welcomes Francisco Diaz of CiscoSews to the show. An upcycling designer, Francisco created CiscoSews, a slow fashion sewing studio, to experiment with garment making.

“There is just so much waste right now that we’re all seeing that we need to slow it down and reuse, and focus less on having the perfect brand new piece — that’s never going to happen.” -Francisco   On the show, we’re always searching for context and looking for definitions to help support the ideas we talk about. At the same time, the more I learn - and let’s be real - the more I UNLEARN from the binary-put-everything-inside-a-box culture around us, the more I realize that in many circumstances, we must welcome a myriad of definitions.

One question we ask on this week’s show is —

What does nonbinary fashion mean to you?

I think we often fail to welcome that myriad I mentioned, when we think about nonbinary fashion. Nonbinary does not always mean androgynous. Nonbinary fashion can look feminine, masculine, neither or both.

This week’s guest is all about living outside labels, and truly embracing what feels good to them, on the daily.

They also happen to be a super creative slow fashion sewing genius. Throughout our chat, they share more on how ditching the fashion binary has opened up more avenues for creativity to flow, in their upcycling design process.

Quotes & links from the conversation:

• “Just being open to different possibilities is really good for my creative process.” -Francisco

• “I think putting too many boundaries on myself — boundaries are definitely important and there’s a lot of them in sewing — but having as much of an open mind as you can with these different pieces will definitely help you out in the creative process.” -Francisco

• Friday Pattern Company

• “I think right now — what nonbinary fashion means to me is just dressing the way that I want to dress without worrying about how the fashion industry would label it or how the person that maybe created it would label it, and just focus more about how it feels on my body or how it aligns with how I want to express myself at the time. So, sort of living outside of any of the labels and just focusing on what feels great to me.” -Francisco

• “I think it frees my design process — I think it almost just opens more avenues for creativity to flow and it sort of stops the blocks of trying to fit into societal expectations of what people would wear.” -Francisco

• CiscoSews Website >

• Follow Francisco on Instagram >

This week's episode is sponsored by Ana Luisa, the first direct-to-consumer jewelry brand to become carbon-neutral.

If you’re interested in checking out Ana Luisa, you can use code CHATTER to get 10% off.