I'm a sociologist whose research and practice share a single inquiry — how people construct identity through the objects, spaces, and daily rituals of embodied life, and what it costs when that construction doesn't fit.
My current work centers on sartorial labor — the identity work embedded in everyday dress — extending Hochschild's emotional labor framework into the domain of clothing and self-presentation. This research is under review at Symbolic Interaction and accepted for presentation at the ASA 2026 Body & Embodiment session.
I'm completing a book, The Identity Gap: Clothing the Self in an Age of Manufactured Instability — a work of public sociology at the intersection of embodiment, material culture, and the gap between performed and authentic self.
I teach sociology at the University of San Francisco and am a co-founder of the MIT Institute for Career Transitions, whose research has been published by the Federal Reserve and covered by NBC Business News.
Through The Unbecoming Series I work one on one with people who've always felt like they don't quite fit — identity alignment work rooted in embodied self-knowledge.
I live and work in Marin County, California.
research
My scholarly work sits at the intersection of identity, embodiment, and material culture — specifically how people use material resources, and especially clothing, as infrastructure for identity work, ontological security, and the daily performance of self.
My dissertation, Misfit: The Impact of Mismatched Jobs on Creative Workers and The Organizations That Employ Them (Brandeis, 2019), was an ethnographic study conducted at Luminaire, one of the country's most celebrated luxury design showrooms, where I simultaneously worked as sales associate and marketing strategist. That dual position — researcher and practitioner inside the same institution — shaped how I understand the relationship between theory and practice. It is not a gap I bridge. It is a position I inhabit.
My current research program, Clothing The Self, is a multi-study qualitative investigation into how everyday dressing functions as reflexive identity work. Study I examined material resources and social dimensions of daily dressing. Study II investigates identity reconstruction when those resources are compromised. Study III extends this into embodied dressing and visual self-monitoring practices. Herderin grew directly from this research — the brand is an applied investigation into whether clothing designed around embodied self-knowledge can close the gap between who people perform and who they actually are.
Manuscripts from this program currently under review:
"Clothing The Self: Material Resources, Reflexive Identity Work, and Sartorial Labor" — Symbolic Interaction (with Alexandra Nugent)
"The Decline of Performative Capital" — Theory and Society
"How Organizations Fail by Hiring for Culture Fit: The Costs of Mismatched Labor" — Administrative Science Quarterly
I have presented at the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, the Eastern Sociological Society, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the US-UK Medical Sociology Conference, among others.
applied work
For the past seven years I have been building Herderin, a regenerative clothing brand grounded in original research on embodiment, fit, and material identity. The line is designed to move with the body across a range of sizes and proportions — length-inclusive by design, not as accommodation. Materials are certified Climate Beneficial™ by Fibershed — US organic cotton, US merino wool, and silk with plant-based dyeing. Every piece is sewn in San Francisco. Herderin has generated six figures in validated sales entirely through word-of-mouth, with active wholesale accounts at Voyager Shop, Housework, Conifer, and Pennyroyal. I am a Fibershed Producer and Co-Op Member and served on Fibershed's Governance Working Group in 2024.
Building Herderin while raising my son as a single parent taught me how to execute under extreme resource constraints — a lived experience that both deepens my research on identity work under precarity and shapes how I build: with intention, resilience, and an unflinching commitment to doing it right even when doing it slowly.
practice
The Unbecoming Series is a one-on-one identity alignment practice for people who have always felt like they don't quite fit — in their bodies, their clothes, their careers, their lives.
The work is rooted in my research on embodied self-knowledge and draws on methods developed across a decade of qualitative fieldwork, including breaching experiments that surface the gap between performed and authentic self. Sessions move through the body first — what you wear, how you move, where you locate yourself — as a way of accessing what more conventional coaching never reaches.
The Unbecoming Series is available as a three-session engagement. In-person intensives are held at Fibershed Learning Center in Point Reyes, California. Remote sessions are available internationally.
This is not therapy. It is not coaching. It is something closer to what the research has always been — a structured encounter with the self you already are.
public speaking
I speak on identity, material culture, embodiment, sustainable fashion, and the sociological dimensions of everyday life.
Selected Engagements
American Sociological Association, New York (2026) "The Decline of Performative Capital: From Identity Politics to Ecological Futures" "Clothing The Self: Material Resources, Reflexive Identity Work, and the Social Dimensions of Everyday Dressing"
Symbolic Interaction and the Qualitatives, Brock University, Niagara Falls (2026) "Clothing The Self"
SF Big Brain, San Francisco (2025) — Sold out "Clothing The Self: The Meaning Behind What We Wear"
SF Climate Week, San Francisco (2025) "Rethink The Runway: How SB707 Impacts California's Small Businesses" "The Anthropocene Age"
SF Startup Art Fair, San Francisco (2025) "INTERWOVEN: Beauty Reimagined From Waste"
Fibershed, Point Reyes (2025) "Exploring Regenerative Food & Fiber Systems"
Center for Domestic Peace, Marin County (2023) — Keynote "How The Trauma-Reduction Model Helps Lessen the Stigma and Maximize Resources for Victims of Domestic Violence" Keynote alongside New York Times bestselling author Tanya Selvaratnam at the largest annual fundraising luncheon in Marin County.
Slate Art, Oakland (2023) "In the Body: Sensualizing the Experience of What We Wear"
SF Climate Week, San Francisco (2024) "A Climate Beneficial Wardrobe"
SF Design Week, San Francisco (2024) "Bay Area Made: Design Stories"
Current Focus
It is spring 2026, and several things are happening at once.
Herderin is in its most significant moment to date. The AW26 collection — 24 styles in Climate Beneficial™ certified materials, sewn in San Francisco — is in production. The website opens for limited quantity orders on September 1, 2026. A Fibers Fund application is currently under review.
My research program is at a productive stage. Manuscripts are under review at Administrative Science Quarterly, Theory and Society, and Symbolic Interaction. I am presenting at the American Sociological Association annual meeting in New York this summer — a full paper in the Body & Embodiment Open Paper Session and two roundtables in Culture and Work & Organizations.
I am completing my first book, The Identity Gap: Clothing the Self in an Age of Manufactured Instability — a work of public sociology on embodiment, sartorial labor, and the gap between performed and authentic self.
The Unbecoming Sessions is open for new clients.
Let's Connect
For research collaboration or Study II participation: avasquez14@usfca.edu
For Unbecoming Sessions inquiries: alexandria.vasquez@gmail.com
For speaking engagements: Use the inquiry form
For Herderin inquiries: Visit herderin.com