04/25/2026
Something in the Water explores Black intergenerational trauma, resistance, and regeneration
through the ancestral storytelling of Black aquatic history with water as both medium and
messenger. Drawing on Black aquatic histories, from the Middle Passage and Jim Crow–era
segregation to Hurricane Katrina and Flint’s water crisis, the collection transforms each garment
into wearable vessels of cultural memory and healing. Something in the Water engages with
water not as backdrop, but as a central force, both medium and messenger, carrying stories of
historical violence, enslavement, survival, joy, and healing. Embracing Indigenous and diasporic
frameworks of sustainability, each silhouette is crafted in natural fibers and refined with 3D
design tools to minimize waste. In positioning water at its core, this collection honors survival
and joy while asserting fashion as a site of activism, remembrance, and renewal.Through every
tide, trauma, displacement, and joy, the strength and beauty of Black people endured. Water
challenged us and carried us; it has also held us, taught us, and sustained us. Fashion, film, and
history remind us that Something is always in the water.
