Disrupting the algorithm: How Santa Calata is carving out a sex positive future
This is A HOT MINUTE WITH, a quick-fire interview series championing all the rising talent catapulting into fashion, art and music’s fickle stratosphere. From pinch-me moments to bad dates and even worse chat-up lines, think of it as an overindulgent conversation – like the ones you have in sticky club toilets at 4.A.M. Except these guests don’t regret the overshare…
Courtesy of @santacalata
NAME SANTA CALATA
AGE 24
LOCATION Chicago, United States
STAR SIGN Gemini
We can all agree that the pandemic has been a time of reflection. In fear and stagnation, the mind is forced to dig deep to find resolve and to better ourselves. This process may uncover things we love, and definitely some things that are worth keeping locked away. Like those 3am TikTok binges and the back2back boredom-induced texting that left you wondering, “what has my life come to?” But in a “desperate act of needing to do something,” Pamela Caledrón, like some sex positive phoenix from the ashes, birthed her brand of repurposed clothing: Santa Calata.
You can almost smell the sass pouring from the brand's nail embellished gloves. Pamela’s pieces range from puffer corsets and mixed textured knitwear to garments that flip a middle finger to the confines of sexual expression. Santa Calata is strictly genderless. In doing so, the brand is an instrument of transgression, finding the freedom of mind, body and soul in its designs.
Besides having an education in fashion design, Pamela, a born and bred Peruvian, strives to shun the conventions of the fashion world. A world she feels (and LORD do we know) is elitist. Her work is an excavation of all her fears, desires and not merely is it her passion to be sustainable but also to be unapologetically free in her skin. Pamela knows she doesn’t fit in your box and she couldn’t care less. It’s an ugly box anyway!
We can view Santa Calata as an extension of Pamela herself. The designer’s previous editorial work showcases her understanding of the chemistry between garment and body. However, Santa Calata has much more to offer. Yes, the brand is disruptive and the designer’s vision forces us to be uncomfortable. But it also asks us to question what is and what should be normal in fashion. Just as Pamela deconstructs and repurposes clothing for Santa Calata, Santa Calata looks to deconstruct the gender binary, reimagining the naked body and tearing down the worldview that society is the gatekeeper of human sexual expression.
Morgan Bevan: Where is your favourite place to shoot?
Santa Calata: I do not care about the place, the important thing for me is where it flows and that the energy is present. I love working in a community because it is shared and it grows. Each shoot is a conversation, I like to meet people and ask them about their background, their opinions and positions. For me that opens a debate and ideas and perspectives are exchanged. Those conversations create the art direction of the moment, each one brings an ingredient. Always for my personal projects I go with an idea in mind (usually zero clear) but without expectations so as not to limit myself.
MB: Your brand’s premise is body positivity, right? What in your opinion is the most beautiful part of the body?
SC: I love nipples, breasts in general. The fact that they are such a controversial and repressive part of the body makes me love them. I love showing my boobs hahaha. The nipples are the best dramatic comedy, they are forbidden for the silliest sustenance in my opinion.
MB: What are the roles that sex and nudity play in your work?
SC: They are the core of what I do and what I am. Sex and nudity are properly natural aspects of the human being. However, they carry a heavy and negative social burden. My goal is to take that weight off little by little through information and visualisation in order to normalise them.
MB: What is the weirdest garment you have repurposed?
SC: The keys that my grandfather kept for junk, kilos and kilos of keys. Also, the clothes of my recently deceased grandmother. It spent a day after her death and I had already made a piece of two of her favourite clothes… it was as if she was still alive.
MB: What is your love language?
SC: Food. It is pure energy. Sharing food for me is an exchange of energies, just like sex. I won't be able to sleep with everyone but I can share a meal and have that same connection.
MB: What is your pandemic pastime?
SC: The wellness. I am one more victim of skincare and take my pampering time. Before I did not see the point due to the lack of time with which I lived.
MB: How has your creative process changed over the past year?
SC: INTENSELY. This year I learned to value myself, be aware of it, and converse with my process. I was finally able to embrace my process and accept it. In the school they always repressed my multifocal process, I was seen as disorderly, distracted, without focus, they reproached me for that. Like everything in life, they imposed the linear process on me, I was pressured to function with it and I just couldn't. My creative process was always present, now I call it by its name, not as a mental disorder.
MB: How does your family inspire your work?
SC: My family this time has been very important, because I realised that we grew hand in hand. It is my closest environment (after my chosen family - friends) And seeing that they have changed and awakened in their own way, with the grain of sand of discomfort that I could sow in them. And the same from them to me. Thanks to them I changed my way of perceiving love and the concept of family that years ago that did not enter my head.
MB: Instagram: Toxic or hot-shit?
SC: TOXICALLY HOOOOT! I consider that I have an addiction to Instagram and although sometimes it does me good, many times it represses me. It gives me a lot of anxiety because I see that everything happens very quickly, there are new creations, ideas, INCREDIBLE concepts every second that I end up comparing myself, stagnating myself due to insecurities. However, when I leave that behind and my true self of an empowered bitch comes out, it is the best platform to say something and inspire others. I'm trying to stop looking for inspiration or making moodboards on Instagram, I'm going back to the old-school to give myself a space.
MB: What does the future of fashion look like in your eyes?
SC: It sounds very utopian (but fashion is society, pure context… This is how I want life to be). I visualise it ethically, morally and environmentally, therefore conscious and inclusive, not only of gender but also of class… fashion is very elitist. THERE ARE ALREADY A LOT OF CHANGES, little by little babies.
MB: If only one club in the world can reopen after lockdown, which one should it be?
SC: "La Sirenita", a seedy bar where there is NEVER ANYONE, and that's why they let us use the DJ booth, the beer is cheap and the atmosphere is Iconic.
MB: What do you believe gender should look like in our future? What role should it play in society?
SC: Visible, inclusive and egalitarian. Society is made up of (diverse) genders. It is illogical and silly to centralise it and focus it on 2 million if we want to function as a team.
MB: What’s one question you’ve always wanted to be asked, but no one’s ever asked you?
SC: How are you?
MB: Have you ever felt like an outsider?
SC: Always, even though I ironically fit into the socially accepted cisgender patterns… I still cause discomfort to people from a young age.