Emma Gonzalez Pini

In my thesis collection, Imagema, I explore the tension between tradition and modernity. Rooted in Argentine heritage and shaped by the photographic methodologies of Horacio Coppola, the pieces are reconstructions of traditional forms created through rigorous technical processes: smocking, embroidery, print development. In developing the collection, I used craftsmanship as a mode of inquiry. Framing reality with precision yields an illuminated realism that reveals the strange within the ordinary. Its contemporary silhouettes inspired by archival photographs of Buenos Aires, Imagema draws the past into the present, not as a disrupting force but as a stage in the process of evolution. Each piece is a study in form and surface, moving from 3D to 2D and back to suggest what is lost and what is preserved in translation. Inspired by gaucho clothing, Imagema is a contemporary expression of folk culture, in which surreal fashion interacts with reality. Creating this collection was not about preserving tradition in a neat glass box but about understanding it deeply enough to break it open and build something new.