Even before launching her namesake brand earlier this year, Puerto Rico-born designer Amanda Forastieri has used fashion as a tool of political and cultural expression. The Drexel University alum’s student collections, titled “La lucha de la Borincana” (A Puerto Rican’s fight) and “Utopia,” delved into themes like Puerto Rico’s femicide crisis and the human-nature relationship. Following her winning the 2020 Supima Design Competition, Forastieri is now intent on building a brand rooted in sustainability, decolonization, and transparency.
For the brand’s debut collection — titled “Fora,” a shortened version of the designer’s last name — Forastieri looked inward for inspiration. “This was the first time that I was able to create outside an academic or competition setting, so there was a lot of freedom,” she says. “Every part of the collection, visually and conceptually, is directly linked to a process of self-discovery.”
