ECO-WARRIOR
Project details
- Year
- 2020
- Programme
- fashion-design
- Practices
- Social
- Minor
- New Earth
Graduating in times of a pandemic forced me to search for new approaches.
Especially since I was staying at my parents’ house in Belgium, where the lockdown restrictions were very severe at the time. It made me look at my surroundings with a different perspective and led me to collect forgotten objects around the house. By attaching these to a mannequin, silhouettes were created that I couldn’t have drawn by hand that easily.
Nominee Bachelor Research Award
To get a deeper insight of what I was doing, I based my research on upcycling and how it could be used as a design method to merge sustainable and sculptural fashion. When upcycling with existing objects, each one contains symbolic associations depending on societal values, time, culture, etc. So these associations needed to be in line with the message I wanted to convey.
From the beginning of my graduation year, I knew that I wanted to address the topic of climate change – as the fashion industry plays a significant role in the cause of it. This led me to research different types of climate activists. By selecting objects that relate to multiple causes and results of climate change, I formed the base of my eco-warrior collection. Representing activists against air pollution, the rising sea level, melting glaciers, deforestation and a human barricade.
Credits
Photography: Toon Aerts
Model: Christina Abraham-Reynolds