Mel is a Brooklyn-based Boricua fashion designer and artist whose work centers care as both a design practice and a way of being. She believes fashion is most powerful when it uses its aspirational nature to imagine and build affirmative futures.Through a research-driven practice, Mel explores alternatives to the fashion industrial complex, prioritizing ethical production, biomaterial innovation, skill-sharing, and relationship-building. Her recent project, $TICKY $IN$, was commissioned for Open Call: Portals at The Shed. Mel is an MFA alumna and faculty member at Parsons School of Design, a Council of Fashion Designers of America Scholar, and a Teen Vogue Generation Next designer.