Rising Stars: Meet Alejandra Caicedo of new york

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alejandra Caicedo.

Hi alejandra, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Alek, a Colombian artist and the founder and creative director of LAKRAS. My background is in fine arts, performance, and the performing arts. My practice begins with questions about the body—particularly the female body—and its transformations, its rebellions, and its place within historical revolutions. I’m interested in how bodies carry personal and collective histories, and how they become spaces for expression, resistance, and change. Absurdity and humor are part of how I explore these questions, creating room to play with expectations, imagine other ways of inhabiting a body, and create new worlds.

I founded LAKRAS in 2017 as a way to explore these questions through wearable pieces. Working between New York and Colombia, I bring together craftsmanship, performance, and experimentation. Clothing and accessories have become another medium within my artistic practice: a way to explore how we inhabit our bodies and how we choose to make ourselves visible.

I think of LAKRAS as protective charms for bodies in transit. That idea takes different forms, from Naomi Tights and one-of-a-kind garments to the Bera Bag, made with recycled aluminum pull tabs in collaboration with the Manos Amorosas workshop. Across these pieces, I’m interested in the relationship between material and body, the intimacy of making something by hand, and the possibilities of transformation. I also enjoy the unexpected: an everyday material becoming something fantastical, or a piece that makes you laugh while making you feel powerful.

Performance remains central to my work. Our recent New York Fashion Week collaboration with AMEHL WORLD, “Do u love me or do u love my avatar?”, explored the relationship between the physical body and its digital image. For me, LAKRAS is an evolving artistic language, one that allows my questions about the body to move between objects, images, and live experiences, with space for theatricality, irreverence, and the absurd.ok

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It hasn’t been a smooth or linear road. One of the biggest challenges has been learning how to be both an artist and a business owner. Developing a collection is one part of the work; understanding pricing, production, inventory, shipping, and how to reach the right audience requires a different kind of creativity and discipline.

Working between Colombia and New York also means navigating different markets and the practical challenges of moving work across borders. With handmade and limited pieces, growth takes planning: I want to reach more people while respecting the time, labor, and attention each piece requires.

I’ve had to keep testing, adjusting, and learning to communicate the value of my work. Building an independent brand has taught me that a strong creative vision needs structure behind it. I’m still learning that balance, but each challenge has helped me become more intentional about what I make and how I build LAKRAS.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a Colombian artist working across wearable art, performance, and the performing arts. Through LAKRAS, I explore the body—particularly the female body—as a place of transformation, resistance, and imagination. My background in fine arts shapes how I approach each piece: I think about what it can communicate, how it interacts with a moving body, and what world it might belong to.

My work brings together craftsmanship, theatricality, absurdity, and humor. I’m drawn to unexpected materials and the possibility of transforming something familiar into something fantastical. Naomi Tights and my one-of-a-kind garments offer ways to play with the body’s appearance and presence.

Supporting collectives and creating through collaboration is something I care deeply about. The Bera Bag is made in collaboration with Fundación Manos Amorosas, a Bogotá-based foundation that supports women artisans, including women who are the primary providers for their families, through handcrafting pieces from reclaimed aluminum pull tabs. What draws me to this collaboration is the connection between women’s autonomy, collective creativity, and the transformation of discarded materials. Through LAKRAS, I want to celebrate their skill, recognize their contribution, and support opportunities through their craft. For me, creating new worlds also means caring about the people who make those worlds possible.

What connects these pieces is an interest in creating new worlds and inviting people to inhabit them. That can happen through an object worn in everyday life or through a live performance. Our New York Fashion Week collaboration with AMEHL WORLD, “Do u love me or do u love my avatar?”, brought these interests together through questions about the physical body and its digital image.

I’m proud of building an independent artistic practice that can move between disciplines while keeping a recognizable point of view. I want my work to give people space to experiment, feel powerful, laugh, and imagine other versions of themselves.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
One of my favorite childhood memories is putting on shows for my whole family at my aunts’ and grandmother’s homes. My cousins still tell stories about how I would make them rehearse choreography. (They used to hide from me because they wanted to play, and I wanted to dance!) I was around nine years old, directing everyone, planning the art direction, and getting completely obsessed with the costumes and styling. These were big productions—or at least they were to me—and I took every detail very seriously.

My mom thought I would become a choreographer. Looking back, so much of what I do now was already there: bringing people together, imagining a world, and bringing it to life through bodies, movement, and clothes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lakras.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lakras.co/
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/alekaicedo/

Image Credits
Clothes by Funny Girl Vintage x LAKRAS