A project by Steven Montinar BFA ’21 and Karla Arrucha, “Ropa Dope” presents wearable works that revolve around black and hispanic culture through the lens of fashion. The pieces are constructed out of objects of black and hispanic oppression, hardship, and constraint and made into items of style and paralleled positive usefulness.

“Ropa Dope” plays off of the boxing term “rope-a-dope”; a word meaning to be trapped against a boxing ring’s ropes and dodging ineffective punches thrown by the opposer. Montinar and Arrucha “dodge the blows” of items within the two communities associated with oppressive events, institutionalization, and last resort solutions by creating alternative uses for them. These alternatives twist the negative into a positive ownership of obstructive histories. The play on words come from the Spanish word for “clothes” (ropa) and a word stemming from black society driven hip hop culture detonating “cool” (dope [informal]).