SEMI-FINALIST OF THE 2024 LVMH PRIZE

Elena Velezby Elena Velez

Elena Velez is a fashion designer and entrepreneur from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her work is known for its unconventional synthesis of metalwork and high fashion. Velez graduated from Parsons School of Design and completed her studies at Central Saint Martins in London. Of Puerto Rican heritage but raised in the rust belt, Velez claims that the industrial nature of her nontraditional upbringing as the only child to a single mother who is a ship's captain on the Great Lakes influenced her current artistic identity, one which she says draws heavily on the relationship between femininity and force.