One of the top polluting industries on the planet, fashion is often sold as fantasy—but the environmental and human costs are all too real. In this powerful SERIES, Elise Mascia confronts the broken systems beneath the surface of style, using design as both critique and catalyst.

This body of work examines how mass consumerism has fractured the integrity of craft within the fashion industry. Driven by relentless consumer demand, department stores and corporate retailers have redefined "value" through volume. Factories are pressured to produce more for less, and in turn, workers are underpaid, creativity is suffocated, and quality is sacrificed for scale.

Fashion, once intimate and intentional, has become disposable—shaped more by pop culture than by purpose.

MASCIA responds to this reality not with despair, but with defiance—through creation. Each piece in the series is constructed from materials that would otherwise be discarded: scraps, childhood denim, donated jeans, and found textiles. These remnants, often overlooked and forgotten, are given new life through meticulous craftsmanship and visionary design. In MASCIA’s hands, waste becomes message. Fabric becomes memory. Clothing becomes a tool for healing, resistance, and renewal.

At the heart of the collection is a striking denim mural—THE BIRTH OF THE NEW WORLD. Crafted entirely from repurposed jeans, the piece features Mother Nature / Mother Universe holding her pregnant belly: the New World. Her form is powerful, sacred, and wounded—her belly cut and bleeding, yet held together by her own boundless love. Surrounding her are celestial beings—angels of the galaxy, people of the world—dancing in unity, celebrating the birth of something better.

This is more than fashion. This is storytelling. This is activism.

A call to remember the roots of creation—and to choose a future where craft, care, and community take center stage.

BIRTH OF THE NEW WORLD