SPLENDOROUS Let it take you away.
  • MARISSA ALVES
  • SPLENDOROUS Let it take you away.

Kaira Roos's wildly shimmering hot-pants ensemble is the fashion equivalent of a lightning bolt, its ingredients list including angles and futurism and cropped undershirts and planar surfaces and metallic finishes and pig leather. Kaira designed the outfit independently, but she is currently an assistant designer at Dolce Vita, a local and fancy-ish footwear company, so she knows lots about this last material—like that it's common in shoe linings, and is quickly identifiable by its visible pores. "Even the faux versions come painted with mock little dots to represent hair follicles," she says, and that is weird to think about.

Developing this look along with others in her mini-line, verla.viv, Kaira drew inspiration from vintage apparel: a pair of jogging shorts made from raw-cut leather and left unlined, for instance. The thought that someone might've once actually jogged in these is both shocking and wonderful. More of Kaira's design details summon a tropical glamour. Draped sleeves look like windsurfing sails, wedge shoes are lacquered with teeny seashells, and fabrics in screechy colors like neon coral recall mid-century Hawaiian barkcloth prints.

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