Kevin Rojas’s Irreverent Fashion Design Art Breathes Life
Feature image: Kevin Rojas is a Costa Rican fashion designer who creates impressive wearable art masterpieces. Via Kevin Rojas’s Facebook.
Kevin Rojas is a Costa Rican fashion designer whose astounding and irreverent fashion design is an art that breathes life in all its forms, whether that’s collaborating with some of reggaeton’s greatest artists or celebrating and honoring the life of a loved one. It’s art that transcends borders while creating a new Latin American identity with a strong social background.
Kevin Rojas is a Costa Rican fashion designer whose art breathes and expresses life through vivid colors and unique silhouettes. Ever since he can remember, he has been very drawn to fashion, but he has faced the challenging opinions of others. He was constantly told not to pursue this art form because he would not have a good time doing it and that it would be hard to carry on economically with said profession.
This constant discouragement from others led Rojas to study industrial engineering at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC) and the Universidad Latina de Costa Rica. During his six years studying industrial engineering, Rojas figured out it was not his career path. It was not what he really loved and felt passionate about.
“I was at the TEC for some years and a few others at the Universidad Latina. But when I was about to finish the degree, I said no. This is not what I love. This is not mine. I’m not this,” Rojas said. “So, I dropped out when I had four or five courses left. And I started with fashion design. And now I’m at a university [studying fashion design.]”
Leaving industrial engineering behind became the best decision Rojas could’ve made. After that, about six years ago, he was in search of getting a Halloween costume tailored to his creative ideas. He’d always be on the search for seamstresses who could get the job done, but none came through with the exact costume he wanted.
“I bought a small [sewing] machine and started doing things for Halloween. I had help from someone who knew how to sew, and with that help, I made my first Halloween costume,” Rojas said. “Thanks to that first Halloween costume, I went to a bar and won a prize for best costume. I won about 600,000 colones (around $1,162) and bought an industrial [sewing] machine. As time went by, I started receiving clothing orders from drag queens.”
The Art of Fashion Design
Thus began Rojas’s fashion design as an art exploration. He found what he really loves and made his hobby his job. He found his true calling, where his art is an expression of his thoughts and feelings. For Rojas, fashion design serves as his alter ego. He considers himself introverted, but with his fashion designs, he feels extremely extroverted.
He creates impressive artworks in the form of clothing that are amazingly irreverent. He wants to give people something to talk about with his colorful, shiny, and textured pieces. You cannot look away from the visually striking pieces, not only for their aesthetic appeal but also because of how he plays with the corporeal movements and shapes.
“I like to play a lot with the silhouettes. I think it’s a part that has not been explored a lot. So, I do enjoy dimensioning the shapes. Exaggerating the hips. Reducing the waist. Augmenting the chest. Incrementing the shoulders,” Rojas said. “I think all of this is something that’s not quite explored yet, and it allows me to stand out a little bit more.”
That’s why he’s a fan of using corsets in many of his pieces. It stylizes the body of the person who uses his wearable art. His pieces adapt to people’s bodies and visually generate unique statement pieces that go through a particular creation process. It’s a process where he initially gathers some basic inspiration.
This inspiration, as told by Rojas, can be a plant, a skirt he saw, or even a dog. After sourcing inspiration, he plays with the idea in his mind. He does a mental design and sometimes proceeds to draw it. He stated he is not good at drawing, but makes his best efforts to then start with the confectioning process.
It’s a process that is described in a simple manner by Rojas: inspiration, imagination, and reality. But it’s a complex journey where important details such as the selection of textures and a color palette play a great role. The textures can go from plain fabrics to intricate pieces where he has to paste or embroider crystals, one by one, to the designs.
And the color palette depends on the event and the inspiration where his muse is coming from. However, red is his favorite color, and it’s one that you’ll notice as a constant throughout his pieces. It’s also a certain play on words with his last name, Rojas. In Spanish, red translates to rojo, telling of Rojas’s calling for fashion design.
“Red means passion, love, life, blood, corporality, and expression,” Rojas said. “Some time ago, I made a gala dress with blood-like drops. That dress was inspired by Costa Rica’s independence and all of the blood that was spilled so that Costa Rica would become independent.”
Rojas’s red is synonymous with life. And success, to a certain extent.
Creating Latin American Identity in Reggaeton
His innovative and unique use of red has taken him to another level with his artistic craft. Last year, he had the great pleasure and opportunity of creating a custom-made design for Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Ivy Queen. Rojas was contacted by Ivy Queen’s makeup artist and asked for a red design for her. She was going on the red carpet for the Rolling Stone en Español awards.
Aside from that look, Rojas designed a blue custom-made piece for Ivy Queen for her performance in Rauw Alejandro’s concert in December 2023 at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot in Puerto Rico. He designed a blue corset with some three-dimensional flowers. However, that look was part of his new venture of Rojas, currently directly working with Ivy Queen on a constant basis.
“Right now, I work directly with Ivy. I speak with her and I send her photos. I’m like: do you like this? Should we do this? So, it’s now a direct process with her,” Rojas said. “I love it. Right now, I’m working on a piece for her, and she gives me [so much] freedom. It’s like I like it but exploit it. Do it. She gives me a starting point but not an ending point. It’s a fantasy and a dream come true.”
Working with Ivy Queen means that Rojas’s fashion designs are making their way through the global reggaeton culture, which is something quite rare to see from a Costa Rican artist. Costa Rica does not have such an active participation in reggaeton culture compared to other countries like Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.
“It’s a huge honor to represent my country. My blood. It’s something, if I’m not mistaken, that no one [from Costa Rica] has done before,” Rojas said. “I think I’m the first [Costa Rican] designer that’s working directly with a reggaeton artist. It’s an incredible opportunity.”
Rojas contributes a contemporary and modern Latin American identity through his designs while being present with some of the major reggaeton artists. Along with Ivy Queen, he’s also dressed Puerto Rican trans artist Villano Antillano. One of his pieces was selected for Villano Antillano’s Rolling Stone cover last year.
“I was talking to her stylist and he contacted me. He told me they were going to take some photos. He really didn’t give me much notion of what it was for, but I was very excited about the project. It didn’t matter what it was,” Rojas said. “Whether it was only photos, a music video, or a runway. I was interested. It had to happen. I sent him various options of the looks I had. There was one look they loved. I sent it and that was the one they used.”
Opportunities like these ones have elevated Rojas’s craft to another level. He’s making strides on a global level. Villano Antillano’s collaboration is also a result of the fashion designs he’s been creating since the beginning that appeal to and give a voice to people from the LGBTIQ+ community.
Celebrating Life “In Honor of Daniela Ruiz”
One of his latest collections, “In Honor of Daniela Ruiz,” was showcased both in the Costa Rica Fashion Week and Dominican Republic Fashion Week in 2023. This collection is one of his highest artistic fashion expressions that speaks about the LGBTIQ+ community in a beautiful manner. It’s a collection that takes you on an emotional rollercoaster with its vibrant color palette that breathes life.
It's the duality between life and death in the form of strikingly beautiful and rare fashion attire. It’s a celebration of life after the loss of a loved one.
“The point of inspiration for last year’s runways was Dr. Daniela Ruiz. Unfortunately, Dani passed away about nine months ago. Something like that. Actually, it’ll soon be a year,” Rojas said. “For me, it was a hard blow because she was a very close person. She was not an intimate friend, but a very close person. She was an excellent client, and we’d have conversations about three or four times a week.”
The closeness between Rojas and Ruiz was synonymous with having a lot of future projects to create fashion in a collaborative manner. After Ruiz’s death, Rojas was hit hard by her loss and felt they still had a lot left to create and explore.
“The fact that she was a trans person impacted my life a lot. Because I know about the struggle that the trans community lives with,” Rojas said. “I know all about what they go through, and I know part of Dani’s story. So, it’s something I wanted to exalt.”
Ruiz was a trailblazer in Costa Rica. She was the first Costa Rican trans woman doctor and dermatologist. While studying medicine at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), she applied for an internship at Harvard, which was approved, and she carried it out with a scholarship. There, she chose to specialize in pediatrics at the Boston Children’s Hospital. Aside from her professional achievements, she was also a fervent advocate for the LGBTIQ+ community and their human rights.
Given Ruiz’s story and legacy, Rojas created a collection that celebrated her life.
“I tried to see it not so much as a loss, but as a win of an angel in heaven. That she left a legacy of all of what she did. That I needed to do a lot of things with her. So, I tried to focus all of those positive things on the runway,” Rojas said. “A lot of the dresses I did, Daniela would say: look. I want a light blue dress. What do you think? And I’d be like: yes, I love it. So, if you saw some light blue dresses, it’s because of that.”
This maximum artistic expression is an explosion of life for Rojas. It’s a collection where Rojas worked hard to transmit a positive feeling of exalting an honorable person whose life deserved an artistic tribute that transcended Costa Rican borders, making it to the Dominican Republic Fashion Week.
“It was a great honor. It was the second time I had a runway in the Dominican Republic. It was incredible because I not only went to showcase my pieces, but also to transmit a message and give Dani another gift,” Rojas said.
Rojas’s astounding and irreverent fashion design is art that breathes life in all its forms, whether that’s collaborating with some of reggaeton’s greatest artists or celebrating and honoring the life of a loved one. It’s art that transcends borders while creating a new Latin American identity with a strong social background.
“I believe that as artists, we always have to project what we are. Independently of what surrounds us. Music, the art of the design, the conceptualization, and all of this will generate information that you can nail down and exploit. In my case, I do it through fashion design,” Rojas said. “All of this makes the child in me feel that I always dreamt of doing this. That I’m making it.”
To learn more about Kevin Rojas’s irreverent fashion design art, follow him on Instagram as @kevin.roojas .
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