TALE OF ESSENCE
CONCEPT
This collection follows a narrative from the naive child to the adult, feminist-conscious woman. Each look reflects important stages that are significant for this development. In which way one meets the real world for the first time and gets to see and experience sexism, toxic relationships with men, gender discrimination, politics that take away your rights, and much more.
CONTEXT
In Feminist Designer – On the Personal and the Political in Design, Alison Place writes:"Feminist design is not just a thing you do, it's how you do everything".
The start of my graduation collection was a personal investigation over myself as a designer: how is it that I do what I do? What do I want to achieve? What are my values and deepest beliefs? Does my work and fashion practice align with these values and thoughts? How can fashion design act as a medium for activism? Can I create the world of fashion I want to participate in? The purpose of these questions was to find the answers to them indirectly during my process, not as a visually presented design.
An important aspect of my world and existence is feminism. I am a feminist being, and therefore, also a feminist designer. I can't separate those two. Feminism has to permeate everything I do, as well as create.
During my own feminist development, what I have experienced as mostly disturbing is how women over and over again have to adapt to the surrounding environment. One example of this is how women are expected to dress, in order to please men. Instead of teaching men how to control themselves, we expect women to dress accordingly. This on and undressing is something that I as a fashion designer have explored more thoroughly during this project.
GOAL
By exploring how fashion can be used in the service of activism, I want to investigate how feminism takes shape through fashion and what my visualization looks like.
How can I, as a fashion designer, portray feminist fashion? Further, I want to explore how clothes, within the framework of fashion design, can work either as a form of cover, as well as exposure. One goal of my graduation collection is to shape a design identity in which both my feminist self and my fashion designer self can collaborate.
One of my main long term goals is to create a place for myself within the fashion industry where I can work to really make a difference. Why is it that the majority of fashion students are women, yet the main characters in fashion are of white men? The fashion industry is not alone about this phenomenon, however I believe that our industry really is facing big changes ahead. I believe that more leading female fashion designers is one of these changes. I want to contribute.
The goal is to create a fashion collection consisting of six looks, where every look represents one important step on the journey from a naive child, to the adult, feminist-concous woman. Focus for the collection also lays on creation garments that strengthens the wearer.
PROCESS
RUNWAY