At the heart of Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City, a few blocks from the Ángel de la Independencia, LEAH gallery presented on May 5th Embodied Garments: a runway show in process, an interdisciplinary event in which the backstage of the fashion show becomes the central element of the runway in the frontstage, where wardrobe changes, fashion styling and last-minute adjustments happened live, inviting the audience to become part of the creative process. The creative direction of Goma Xantana, the research of Cristina Díaz, styling of Darío Modotti, Jorge Tirado and Pablo Bermúdez, and the makeup and hair of Maggie Ramos and Eliot Morales, shaped the event, structured in eight acts accompanied by the sound art pieces by Sofía Tormenta. The runway brought together pieces from Mexican brands that explore new narratives within contemporary fashion, among them: Serena Creciente, Menos 117, NISA, Rosymar González Jewelry, DOZE, Fiss, Maison Mohe, Maria Vera, Nabyl Zarina, Natalia Blanco and Nómada Studio.

The proposal of Embodied Garments is interesting because it gives reinterprets the value of the image through a performance that makes visible the creative process that constructs it, in a broader context where the concept of “the image" has lost its symbolic value; stripped of any relationship with reality and converted into a "commodity" that lacks value unless it can be monetized. The pieces present in the show, by being created live and in total improvisation, break with the authority of the perfect image —digestible though distant—, responding according to Cristian Baena to the public's need for more natural and intimate encounters "in the face of the superficiality and exclusivity that tend to structure these spaces." Part of why certain spaces, and this is true for fashion as much as for art and technology, feel exclusive is because there is an opacity that covers the creative process, but also the process where the value of proposals, artists and spaces is deliberated. Who decides what is culturally, socially and economically valuable? By bringing creative decisions into the open, where successes and failures —crucial in the construction of original ideas— are visible to the audience, LEAH brings us closer to a more transparent vision of the creative industry.

Gallery LEAH, founded by Rosymar González and Denisa Coj, is an interdisciplinary creative platform that seeks to erase the boundaries between fashion, plastic, visual, digital and technological arts. Cristina Díaz, curator of the gallery, points out that LEAH's proposal responds to new technologies, not only from the digital or the hype around artificial intelligence, but by thinking "technology from visual proposals, such as optical illusion, sculpture and sound art." On the subject of technology, for Rosymar González, whose professional background spans from fashion to systems engineering, technology is something that, whether we want it or not, is present in our lives and (in urban contexts) it is almost impossible not to relate to it in one way or another. This is why the gallery promotes pushing the limits of human collaboration with technology in its creative proposal. Conditional on this "embracing" of new technological trends is the human element, which is in fact the core of the gallery's vision: "What we do is embrace absolutely everything that we are, the systemic and technological pole, and our human and cultural side. From our vision, there must always be a soul creating and proposing."

The multidisciplinary nature of the gallery stems from an interest of Denisa Coj and Rosymar González, founders of LEAH, in creating a space where different disciplines can coexist without labels: "The idea was born from not denying parts of oneself, but complementing. I like fashion, but I also love art, design, music, film… More than a designer I consider myself a creative."

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Several of the pieces presented during Embodied Garments are available in gallery. LEAH Gallery can be visited free of charge at Hamburgo 182, 2nd floor, col. Juárez.