Alma Tropical started with a memory: looking up at the Venezuelan rainforest canopy as a child and catching flashes of macaws (guacamayas) in colors so vivid they looked invented.

The macaws are all of us who left. Every immigrant who flew toward something better, carrying their country's colors into new places, new cities, new lives, contributing everything their homeland taught them. The orchids and birds of paradise are what survives the journey: my two favorite plants, both native to the tropics, both built to thrive in places that ask a lot of them. And the colors are the optimism that never left, no matter what.

I painted this collection in colored pencils, building each design layer by layer until the color was dense enough to feel like the place it came from. Every scarf in this collection is printed on 100% silk twill with hand-rolled edges.