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.

In her portfolio, Kaira's models stand on mounds of beach sand in a white photography studio, in tribute to Francesco Scavullo's famous 1973 fashion portrait of the hairy-thighed Mick Jagger. (Jagger wears silver perv shorts while gripping a scoop-and-pail play set, and the expression clamped on his face is a little cruel and a little bored, suggesting these actions are a normal part of his routine.)

Kaira's greatest work is a bizarrely imaginative one-piece garment patterned with gilded crests, swirling medallions, and other splendorous '90s-era relics. To construct the look, she began with a floor-length muumuu. Worth noting: According to dubious internet lore, the word originates from mu'umu'u, which means "amputated" in Hawaiian, and the loose-fitting dresses are a symbolic reminder of the leprosy rampant during the Hawaiian missionary period.

Kaira picked the gown for its delicate polyester, and she installed ribbed ankle cuffs and a low-slung crotch to encourage the fabric to fall in liquidy swirls. "It's ridiculous," says Kaira, describing the finished muumuu jumpsuit, which clearly has its own shit going on. After you've put it on, you should just let it take you wherever it needs to go.

Send fashion tips to marti@thestranger.com