Louise Skehan

The graduate collection From Darkness I was Born focuses on the journey and struggles through mental illness from the darkness and despair of depression and anxiety into the light. It looks at how tough struggles through mental illness may make an individual a stronger and more capable person. This collection tries to look at mental illness from a positive angle, rather than focusing on the negative aspects. It portrays inner strength and determination as lightness/brightness breaking through the darkness. This is done using a contrast of dark and bright colours and a contrast of light and heavy fabrics.

Body language was explored to find ways to portray strength visually. Strong body language postures were looked at, such as strong shoulders and confident stances these were used to inspire strong and confident silhouettes throughout the collection.

The contrast between darkness and light is quite important to the concept of this collection and so colour and fabric choices were quite important. Heavy knit and wool along with denim and leather is used alongside lighter fabrics such as lace, delicate silk jersey and tulle sequinned fabric to highlight how opposing qualities can exist side by side, like in depression how that feeling of weakness, with hard work and perseverance, can ultimately be turned into strength and power. The black denim was raster engraved using laser cutting with a geometric line pattern, the effect was so that it looked like the lighter shades were ‘breaking through’ the dark colour of the denim. The eyelets and leather lacing were used as fastenings in a number of garments to visually represent that feeling of being trapped by mental illness.