Sticky Trap: Food Type meets Fashion

The correlation between candy and fashion was not initially obvious beyond the choking hazard, however, candy's saccharine mockery of adult vices (smoking, hard drugs, and expensive jewelry being easy examples) intrigued me. Trap queen fashion bridges the child to adulthood gap effectively, where I focused my research and devised a series of type related pieces. The question emerged: could I grow lettering to defy gravity?

I began twisting wire, which I prototyped with pipe cleaners, jewelry wire coated in glue, string; each was submerged into a hyper-saturated syrup for four hours. The pieces hung dry and the best one was chained by yours truly. Twenty candy necklaces were broken apart and placed into a $, then restrung vertically using the original elastic string, fishing line, and wire for weight bearing support. The challenge of legibility working only when worn made construction difficult but ultimately rewarding. To counter such a large Kayne-esque piece, I made candy-ass knuckles out of taffy baked onto modeling clay. Smartee rings were dremeled to match the model's finger size. To subsidize these looks, I created gum ball hoops, a marshmallow rope charm bracelet of printed and traditional gum balls, and a bib necklace of lollipops and fondant. With so many options, we could explore a sticky trap concept on a spectrum of grit and refinement.

To break into the fashion world, I needed a fashion-able copilot. Enter Columbus based photographer Nick Fancher. Nick carves light the way some discard a candy wrapper: instinctively, deftly. Like mine, his work is scrappy and resourcefully produced, which made him the perfect partner. He not only shot but produced the set, bringing the best people to the table. The final set is mouthwatering but powerful, pure hard candy.