“Im Raya, a 23 years old trangender women, I live in Paris but I come from a french volcanic island in the middle of the Indian ocean, called “La Réunion “; I grow up there and I move to Paris at 17 years old to find a way to construct my identity and future without no one to stop me. I’m a model, an artist and my work turns around love and passion that I discovered with people I meet everyday in my life. I just realized that my body didn’t correspond to my soul when I decided to leave my parents’ place at 15 years old; I felt breathless, I knew I could not really identify myself with someone else on that small island. Since childhood I realized that people would always try to hinder my choices, that they would try to stop me. The fact of having realized this since I was very young has perhaps tempered me and helped me to overcome a lot of horrible situations, because people can be really rude! Fashion makes me feel beautiful and confortable with myself, inside and outside; With fashion I feel I can make a real contribution, because by sharing my image and what I am I can help other people in a condition of discomfort to feel free.”