CLARISSA DE VASCONCELOS MATOS is a fashion designer, specifically a textile designer and visual artist, who graduated with a BFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design in NYC. At Parsons, her concentration was the Materiality pathway, where she created a vegan and sustainable fashion design collection. Her collection was featured on Vogue, Harper’s Baazar, Yahoo, Fashionista, and Hypebeast.
Clarissa was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and raised in Los Angeles, USA. She grew up as a visual artist, and pursued her education and career in fashion, where she integrated painting on her cut and sew designs. While at Parsons, she won a scholarship to study abroad at Parsons Paris, where her genderless capsule collection won the Cerruti 1881 and The Woolmark Company competition. Clarissa has also worked for Anna Sui, Abercrombie & Fitch, Sketchers, Vaute Couture, Sony Pictures, and Fox Studios.
Her work focuses as an integrative form of art and activism. In addition to a commitment to sourcing materials not derived from animals, she seeks to create work that explores the political, social, cultural, environmental, and economic themes of veganism, and integrating them with her love for animals and the beauty of the planet we inhabit..
Her main purpose as a visual artist, fashion designer, and human person is to make compelling art that unites what we deem separate, to shed light on unconscious biases we may hold, and to make a positive contribution to our world, specifically with regards to making meaningful gains in the conversation between fashion and animal rights. Her goal is to convey this creative experience in her work, in the hopes of awakening people’s consciousness and raising questions on the nature of our current relationship with animals, our environment, and ourselves.
