Everything is art and everything is fashion to Aki, it’s all up for grabs whether it ends up as a canvas, dress, or both. Fashion morphs out of her love for and study of art and architecture and aside from the one “fashion-designish” class with Susan Cianciolo (there is nothing conventional or predictable about Susan’s design classes), Aki seems to have no need to change her studies while evolving as a fashion designer. Her
ingenuity as a couturier is particularly notable in her transformation of the mundane Macy’s shopping bag into something precious and chic. Aki has an appealing innocence about how she dresses, I love how legitimately confused she was when I asked her what designers she looks for when shopping, because she literally never thinks about it.