{"id":336575,"date":"2018-12-01T05:52:33","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T13:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=336575"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:20:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:20:50","slug":"dvp-interview-sky-cubacub-and-alice-wong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-sky-cubacub-and-alice-wong\/","title":{"rendered":"DVP Interview: Sky Cubacub and Alice Wong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alice Wong interviewed Sky Cubacub for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0at StoryCorps San Francisco on September 29, 2016. Sky talks about her work as a chainmaille artist and how she learned to design and sew clothes. Sky also talks about her company Rebirth Garments and what how the fashion industry fails disabled and non-conforming bodies.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1360\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F538221738&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxwidth=1360&#038;maxheight=1000&#038;dnt=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Text Transcript<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>SKY CUBACUB<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: I, so, I\u2019ve been chain-mailing since I was 13, and that\u2019s kind of like my main thing that I\u2019ve been doing. My Filipine grandmother\u2014Grandma Cora\u2014she has been sewing forever and is an amazing pattern maker. And so, I was always really, like I would design outfits for her to make me, but I didn\u2019t learn how to really sew officially until high school.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE WONG<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: And where did you learn from? How did you learn?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: I learned from my twin best friends\u2019 mama. [chuckles]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Mmhmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: She taught me how to make a unitard and use the serger, which is like the kind of sewing machine that I use for most of my garments. That\u2019s what these seams are. But yeah, she was a dancer and had been making her own unitards for a long time, and I was kind of upset that I had to figure out some way to cover up my models underneath my chainmail garments that were too see-through. And I was upset with the options that were only black, white, or like a peachy-beige, and I was like, I want something fun and colorful and that isn\u2019t a weird, fake skin tone. [chuckles]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Mmhmm. So, it grew out of chainmail.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: And you make unitards for the chainmail.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: But then you went through this whole new line for gender fluid and crip bodies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Mmhmm! Seeing the way that people move when they\u2019re in my clothing is so amazing. You know, I\u2019ve seen so many transformations with my friends just over the last year. The more that I make them clothing, the more they feel comfortable and confident in their body. I mean I love collaborating on stuff, and even though this is my business and I want it to be able to sustain me, I also am just like this is my life\u2019s passion. I don\u2019t really care how many hours I have to spend on something as long as it makes the other person really happy and feel confident. It\u2019s like such an amazing feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, with my friend, Melinka, who I\u2019ve been mentoring at the high school that I went to, she has alopecia, and she had been wearing all these human-hair wigs but got really into social justice and realized that they were made in sweatshops basically by slaves. And got really excited about my headpieces and wanted to make her own ones and have them be metal so that they\u2019d last for like 100 years instead of only two. And I see pictures of her from before, and she looks very timid and kind of just like hiding behind her wig. But now, she rocks her no hair at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: She\u2019s fierce.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah, she\u2019s so fierce.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Rocking the metal look.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah. [laughs]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: That\u2019s awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Starting her own business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah, I just want more queer crips to start their own businesses for us. Yeah, I\u2019m very into for us, by us type. Yeah, I would love to have a couple more folks who can help me sew, and of course I love collaborating on designs. But yeah, I mean I do have this concern of wanting to, yeah, I wanna have all of the designs showing all kinds of disability. So, I know that that\u2019s a thing that I\u2019ll be constantly working on \u2018cause it\u2019s just like, you know, mainstream fashion has completely failed us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that just the entire fashion industry needs to have an overhaul and completely change. And I think that the way that they\u2019re teaching it in school is that you cannot change it and that you just have to keep going with how it is. But if they\u2019re just teaching that, and if people are just going with that, then nothing will ever change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s this idea that yeah, the clothing is more important than people\u2019s health. The clothing is more important than the models that are wearing it. And while I think that my clothing is important, it\u2019s only important because it\u2019s important to my models. It\u2019s changing their lives. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: There\u2019s so much to discover\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: \u2014and to highlight with our bodies. That\u2019s really fun.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah. There\u2019s completely endless possibilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>SKY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: I mean if they\u2019ve focused so much the last like thousand years on just heteronormative, able-bodied white folks, we\u2019re gonna be able to explore these possibilities for different kinds of queer crip folks for like [laughing] a million years!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Absolutely!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Support Disability Media and Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/donate\/\">DONATE<\/a> to the Disability Visibility Project<\/strong>\u00ae<strong>!<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4>Suggested Reference<\/h4>\n<p>Disability Visibility Project\u00ae. (2018, December 1). DVP Interview: Sky Cubacub and Alice Wong. Retrieved from:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-sky-cubacub-and-alice-wong\/\">https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-sky-cubacub-and-alice-wong\/<\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Image description<\/h4>\n<p>On the left is Sky Cubacub, a non-binary queer and disabled Filipinx human wearing colorful chainmaille headpiece in magenta, purple, turquoise and yellow. She is wearing a sleeveless purple mesh tank and a necklace that looks like chains in purple and magenta. On the right is Alice Wong, an Asian American disabled woman in a wheelchair. She is wearing a top with a geometric print with stripes, in aqua, black, white, and red. She is wearing a mask over her nose attached to a tube for her ventilator.<\/p>\n<h4>Credits<\/h4>\n<p>Produced for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0by Alice Wong. Interview recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the story of our lives. For more: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.storycorps.org\">www.storycorps.org<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com\">www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For any questions, please refer to the <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/about\/terms-of-useprivacy\/\">Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alice Wong interviewed Sky Cubacub for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0at StoryCorps San Francisco on September 29, 2016. Sky talks about her work as a chainmaille artist and how she learned &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-sky-cubacub-and-alice-wong\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue Reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DVP Interview: Sky Cubacub and Alice Wong<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":336588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[548705951],"tags":[587152565,148,4572256,214695644,587152566,587152570,587152567,587152495,587152568,587152348,587152569],"class_list":["post-336575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvp-interviews","tag-clothing","tag-design","tag-disabled-artists","tag-disabled-bodies","tag-fashion","tag-filipinx","tag-non-conforming-bodies","tag-nonbinary-disabled-people","tag-queer-crips","tag-queer-disabled-people-of-color","tag-rebirth-garments","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sfb003778_g1.jpg?fit=5184%2C3456&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-1pyD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}