BAD BEHAVIOUR
Bad Behaviour is not a brand, it's a tag. Started by Melanie Alva in 2017, in an attempt to make a fashion brand, it became a grassroots community of artists using the tag as a common thread of expression. Melanie used this community to show works along with collaborators and discover her path as a narrative fashion designer.
From the success of BAD BEHAVIOUR came exposure, knowledge and opportunity to push the fashion narrative and create characters that live longer than their season.
Into Nostalgia
This is the first piece I made without having a fashion show booked. I decided to just make it and let its “reason to exist” come along later. The vision of the red and white gingham was my inspiration because of my favorite childhood photograph of myself.
I am wearing a red a white gingham dress, and I am posing for the camera very happily and boldly. I remember telling my mom I loved the photo because it was the most “Melanie” I had ever been. I noticed some sadness in my voice at the realization that I was not as “Melanie” as I once was. The journey that this piece has taken me on can be best described as the most Melanie I’ve ever been since.
I had left school less than a year when I began working on it at the beginning of 2019. While working part-time as a sales associate at Steve Madden, full time as a stylist in the evening wear department at Saks Fifth Ave, and in the mornings I was teaching ballet to children between the ages of 2-12. Every evening I would spend time in my studio where Nostalgia slowly began to exercise herself from my thoughts.
My living situation was very fuzzy at the time as I had decided to leave school with not much more of a plan than going to pursue my dream of creating legendary runway collections and producing fashion shows for their viewing. I went between staying at my parents house, a friend's couch, and an apartment walk-in closet that was shared with three other creatives.
While sketching the third or fourth draft of the piece in a coffee shop, I was trying to think of her name. (Yes, it's a her) It was on the tip of my tongue, it needed to describe the symbolism of its iconic print that evokes memories while still sounding like the name of a character. “Nostalgia and the Way the Sun Feels” is what I wrote on the sketch, which later I shortened to just her name, Nostalgia.
I soon received an email inviting me to show in Matt Swiney’s first iteration of Fashion For Good’s, Austin Fashion Week at the Domain. Recommended by The Downmarket, a community arts org. that I was involved with in San Antonio, they extended an invitation to show for free as an emerging designer.
Nostalgia took form on the AFW runway that November. Fashioned with the final touches of her caution tape belt and picnic basket flowing out bubbles. I had saved the caution tape belt from a Forever 21 going-out-of-business damage section, and it felt important to add to my message that however beautiful and spellbinding nostalgia may be, a warning must be given. As tempting as it may be, don't get lost in the labyrinth of your memories, the grass wasn’t always greener in the past.
This piece was very emotionally charged. I had spent so much time trying to move faster than life’s rhythm, no matter how hard my circumstances may have become, I was right where I always wished I would be one day. And through the process of making Nostalgia I gained the lifelong creative process of channeling my complex internal conversations into a wearable character.
Nostalgia has since been published and shown more than five times worn by the original model, Nani Mel, that I met backstage at AFW. She has taken Nostalgia to a whole new dimension, collaborating and portraying the character in various shows and photoshoots.
