TOOTH

I was never embarrassed by my missing tooth.

For most of middle school and all of high school, I had a gap — technically. But unless I took my retainer out to eat, you wouldn’t have known. There was a fake tooth built into it, a quiet illusion doing its job. I controlled when the gap was visible. I chose when it showed.

That choice matters.

TOOTH MAG is named after that space — the one that wasn’t a flaw, but a feature. A reminder that absence can be intentional. That what’s missing can still feel complete.

This magazine is my final piece. The thing that rounds out my college career the way that retainer rounded out my smile. With it, I step into the fashion industry whole — not because I’ve filled every gap, but because I understand how to shape them.

TOOTH exists for the she’s, gays, and theys — for anyone who understands that fashion is construction. That identity is styling. That what we present to the world is curated, layered, and sometimes reinforced from behind the scenes.

We are interested in the mechanics.

In slow fashion practices that hold structure.
In avant-garde storytelling that exposes the seams.
In sustainability, not as a trend report, but as resistance.
In cultural documentation that lingers long after the algorithm moves on.

Like that retainer tooth, fashion often operates as an illusion —smoothing edges, filling gaps, perfecting silhouettes. But we’re more interested in what happens when you take it out, when the construction shows, when the real architecture of a garment, a story, or a person becomes visible.

TOOTH is about that reveal.

It is about choosing when to show the gap.
It is about owning the space between what is seen and what is constructed.
It is about completion on your own terms.

This is my full smile — engineered, intentional, and entirely mine.

— AJ