Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Eva Dominguez-Peralta. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Eva thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

My life is definitely better and happier as an artist. Growing up in poverty I learned that the bills never end and regular jobs might pay the bills but they don’t lift you out of poverty. Only Vision, Education & Entrepreneurship can do that. So I made it my goal to develop a vision of my future capable of providing for myself financially, support my community and build space for others, with my creative skills. As an artist, I get to build my dreams by doing what feeds my soul.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Eva… I’m an artist with a passion for fashion, culture and community. I am a 1st Gen Latina, born in Nicaragua. I crossed the border at 3 yrs old with my mom and was raised in Miami Dade County, East Little Havana with my undocumented parents and little brother who was born here. We’re all American Citizens now but the experience changed me and made me a more empathic human. Essentially, I was a Gifted kid; ADHD/Neurospicy adult healing childhood trauma, navigating depression, trying to live up to my potential.

I am a mid level luxury Miami streetwear fashion designer and I sell eco-friendly products that represent and empower the culture through my artwork. To avoid over production and creating waste, all products are made to order or upcycled within the U.S. so product arrival time may be delayed due to production time but my customers seem ok with sacrificing shipping time to receive an ethically and responsibly made American product. I sell custom Doc Martin boots for $60 and T-shirts at $30 with the goal of raising seed money to transition to VEGAN products like leather made of cacti and transition from cotton to hemp to curb water consumption. My proudest achievements have been my fashion shows; I always work with half models from an agency and the other half novices and regular women with normal bodies walking a runway for the first time. My goal is to bring as much diversity & representation to the runway as possible, provide opportunities for models and provide empowering joyful experiences to regular women. I believe in being intentional in everything I do, especially when it comes to representation.

As an artist looking to find purpose in what I do, I followed my heart and I got into the fashion industry organically. I learned to sew from my mom who often made or altered our clothes. Eventually I began altering my own clothes in middle school to fit my hard to shop super tiny frame. I began making jewelry around 2010, got into graphic design around 2012 and then started blogging in 2014. As I developed my skill set, I gained new experiences. I worked as a creative director and graphic designer for an ovarian cancer non profit for 6 years. I worked with a local fashion mag and even wrote a few articles as a fashion writer. I assisted in organizing fundraising fashion shows and scouted local indie designers to showcase, many who give me pride to see how far they’ve taken their dreams. One who I will always remember had her first runway show with us and then thanked me for her first interview, now she flies around the world for interviews and has made it to NYFW.

All the experiences I collected in the industry prepared me to launch my own brand, @hautehighfashionlabel in 2020 from a dream I held onto since my mid 20s. And it’s been my pride and joy to represent Miami Streetwear culture. Haute High stands for Haute Styles for High Standards but it’s also a nod to stoner culture. Two years after launching, I went back to school for Fashion Design to learn how to make blocks from scratch. I also completed the Miami Bayside Foundation’s “Small business training workshop” which I highly recommend. This Fall I go back to school for Fashion Merchandising so I can learn the business side of the industry. My goal is to grow my brand to where it’s profitable enough that I can employ members of my community and hopefully open my own factory in Hialeah.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Definitely. Utopia. I know that may sound naïve but coming from a Christian Pentecostal background I was raised that the only future we had was the end of the world, the Apocalypse, the destruction of everything. Destruction was painted to us as beautiful because we should rejoice in God’s wrath against evil sinners….So I left the church and asked God to make me a light in the dark places. In place of their hate for those they view as sinners I chose to be inspired by love, empathy and acceptance. I follow the Prince of Peace and doing all things with Love became my religion. In place of their bleak annihilistic view of our future I set out to design a vision of a better future, a cleaner one so I focus on sustainability and eco friendly practices, and I hope to inspire cultural change in how we view clothes, consume trends, how we shop and view ourselves. The brand is merely a driver to deliver a vision of a better future, something positive for my community to believe in.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think we need to start by protecting the Arts and Music programs in public schools, especially for low income Chapter 1 schools. To be a creative is to have the ability to think outside the box and see things from a different perspective which can lead to novice ideas and solutions. Spatial thinking is useful not just in making art but also in making complex decisions and formulating complex ideas & strategies in any area. This is necessary for progress within the most underfunded communities; spatial thinking creative students grow up to become spatial thinking adults who develop creative solutions that can help their communities.

Unfortunately, Charter schools which are often conservative & religious, are exploding and bleeding public school funding dry leading to the removal of Art programs for our most underserved young artists. The result is we end up bussing low income kids to charter schools in other communities and in doing so we break their connection to their own communities; no more walking home with the neighbor kids, they may be the only student from their community at that school and while they may get a better education, their community school remains underfunded and they go home to an underserved community where daily life is vastly different than their school friends. My little brother had that experience as an East Little Havana kid going to school in Coral Gables, where kids had parents who could afford their piano lessons and he came home to a broken down apartment with a window view of neighbors being evicted. All because his own community school a few blocks away was severely underfunded, drained to give way to public funded private schools. He now works with a non profit org that works closely with Chapter 1 schools to supports at risk youth in underserved communities to empower and prepare them to become future leaders of their communities.

I think we need to cut the cord on Charter schools and focus on investing public funds on the kids that need it most, public school kids. We need to be conservative with public funds, strengthen the community connections, support the local school marching bands and create space for our young and future artists to thrive and grow up to be the future leaders of their community. Wynwood itself was born from the support of our public school system, the city used to invest in us heavily in the 90s with school fieldtrips to see plays, museums, art galleries, and access to instruments. Now some schools don’t even have a music teacher. Support Public Education funding for the Arts, that’s how we create a thriving creative ecosystem.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hautehighfashion.com
• Instagram: @hautehighfashionlabel
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HauteHighFashion/