You own something you can't let go of. Maybe it no longer fits. Maybe it no longer fits you.
In this session, you bring that piece — the one with the story attached — and we work with it. Not to discard it, but to understand what it's holding.
What identity does it anchor? What version of you does it protect? This session draws from years of research into how people use clothing to hold onto — and release — versions of themselves. Together we explore reinventing the garment and, in doing so, begin to reinvent the story.
Invite someone who knows you well enough to dress you.
In this session, you and a trusted friend each choose a piece from your own wardrobe for the other — selected deliberately, worn intentionally, brought to the session however you meet. What does another person's eye reveal about how they see you? What does it feel like to inhabit someone else's aesthetic?
Participants in the research this session draws from described wanting to expand themselves. That is exactly what this is.
Every morning, you get dressed. You rarely ask why.
Most of us dress on autopilot — reaching for what fits the occasion, what fits the body, what fits the version of ourselves we've agreed to perform. Rarely do we stop to ask what's underneath that agreement. What we've been avoiding. What we've outgrown. What we're quietly protecting.
The Unbecoming Sessions are a three-part identity alignment practice grounded in sociological research and embodied inquiry. Each session pairs a structured experiment with guided reflection to help you understand not just how you dress, but who you are becoming through what you wear.
This is not styling. It is not therapy. It is something rarer — a practice for people who sense that their wardrobe and their self are not yet in alignment.
The final session draws from a four-year practice of living without mirrors — one of the most disorienting and clarifying experiments a person can undertake.
You are guided through a structured mirror removal practice alongside the journaling and integration work it surfaces. What do you actually know about yourself when the reflection is gone? What remains when the performance has nowhere to land?
Alexandria Vasquez, PhD is a sociologist, designer, and the founder of Herderin. Her research centers on sartorial labor — the invisible work of dressing for a self one hasn't chosen — and has been presented at the American Sociological Association and submitted to peer-reviewed journals including Symbolic Interaction.
She has spent seven years building Herderin as a material practice of that research: clothing designed to fit who you actually are.
The Unbecoming Sessions are where that research becomes a lived experience.
Session One:
The Garment
Session Two:
The Swap
The Unbecoming Sessions
Session Three: The Mirror
About Your Guide:
Alexandria Vasquez PhD
