Jessica gets the chills and sometimes screams when she sees something that she has to own, like the orange and turquoise print fabric she wraps herself in and the colorful cartoon print “70s/geisha” wedges that she wears with it. When I came to interview her, she opened the door in a breathtaking, oversized African men’s cardigan that she wears as a dress with lipstick red alligator wedges, possibly remnants of the period in her life when the color of passion took hold of her completely. True to the extraordinarily sensory way in which she experiences life, Jessica wore wore only red clothes and lipstick and painted her room red when she was writing her senior thesis on the color’s symbolism. I think that Jessica’s use of a blazer turned backwards and worn as a skirt is one of the most original twists on clothing I have ever seen. Her brightly colored patent sandals from a Milan flea market are very Marni-esque and worn as a total surprise with her blue and white “tablecloth” skirt gone Grecian when worn as a dress. She is obsessed with men’s clothing and tailoring and is launching a menswear line in the near future, which is interesting to me because she herself is so unstructured and almost primal in her use of draping and textured fabrics. I told her how I would love to eventually conduct SLU interviews from tribal areas, where for me style possesses a kind of ultimate simplicity and emotional and inherited value. Jessica, with her heightened responses to life and creativity, in a way already channels that for me.

To get the full picture of Jessica’s talents, check out her website and blog.

If you like Jessica, you might also enjoy Adia Trischler, Lisa Moffie, or Hiraku Morilla.