Collection Statement

---

My garments bare the scars of wear. My T shirts have been torn, the blazer seams burst, and my grandfather’s favourite woollen trench coat has lost its buttons and become victim to moth holes, with no stitches made in time.

I chose these belongings based on my fascination with decay and its ability to transform objects and organisms into new forms through subtraction. I found my sympathetic side perturbed though while viewing Maison Margiela’s 2024 Haute Couture runway collection by John

Galliano, in which a stream of decrepit dolls limp down the River Seine. 

Seeing the holes in their tights I grew overwhelmed with sympathy, and my love of these damaged characteristics soured into a feeling of cruelty and irresponsibility. I’ve now turned to my own belongings and questioned how my behaviours have insulted them.

In this collection, I've reimagined and appropriated jewellery into a medium for designing instruments of clothing repair. I never wanted to hide the damage, but I wanted to reduce further damage, so that the holes and tears can be worn noticeably with pride.

In truth, metal is not always a convenient medium to use on cloth. It has the tendency to tear through the fibres in a destructive manner which creates a sense of impermanence for any improvements made. Thus, the act of repairing cloth with jewellery must become an absurd endeavour.

As vessels of an absurd act, these designs became more complicated than cloth kintsugi, and became more inspired by the impotent machines from Duchamp’s ‘Large Glass’ that in their mechanic state, turn the wheels and align themselves perfectly to woo a bride, but within the framework provided by their creator, they cannot succeed.

I aimed to construct these jewellery designs as mechanisms and so, I set certain criteria.

Firstly, I designed many of the pieces to move while functioning, to avoid being purely sculptural. The second criteria — exemplified by the earrings — was that components should be removable so the pieces could be disassembled when not in use. The third change was the use of my own standardised parts, because in mechanical engineering, you never start each component from scratch but utilise the availability
of standard parts. I designed and created these parts from my own specific metals and for my own needs.

The sharp piercing forms the hardware took were utilitarian, as the grip made by them helped the metal interact with the garments. When mixed with the repetitive textures created by the tappings, a fascinating aesthetic began to emerge.

It has been a confusing but validating experience to give life and love to such deserving objects as my grandfather’s coat, shoes handmade by prisoners and a designer’s unfinished passion project. It’s possible that with the visibility of the metal repairs and the way they inspired a line of jewellery design, these troublesome mechanics have saved the objects from imminent abandonment and extended their life far into the future.