Mia Layzell

after reading 'the devil's cloth' by michel pastoureau as part of the research for my pre-collection and learning of the historical practice of imposing dress laws on those at the bottom of the social hierarchy, i wanted to explore this concept even further and design a collection that aims to blur the divide in the classes. my graduate collection is therefore a culmination of all of my research into class dress throughout history and features silhouettes and textile techniques from both ends of the class spectrum in order to merge the two. the collection heavily features checked patterns as a reference to the historical class associations with checks and stripes that are discussed in pastoureau's text.

i have combined extremely time-consuming, labour intensive textile processes with more practical techniques: one outfit consists od a hand-strung pearl corset made over 50 hours with almost 3,000 glass pearls, worn over a basic two-colour domestic punch card sweater. another features a hand-painted check fabric coat with patches of darning and embroidery to mend parts of the patchwork remnant fabric. it is this meshing of painstaking, artisan-like methods with basic mending that creates a garment that belongs exclusively to no one group. the use of so many hand-techniques is also due to my belief that the industry i have graduated into needs to slow down and return to mastering craft rather than churning out new collections every few months.

one of my aims is to create collections that are designed with sustainability in mind yet are still incredibly exciting and extravagant; a refreshing change from the 'beige' collections that have been dominating the 'environmentally conscious' genre of fashion and textiles. i was able to do this in my graduate collection by using natural and biodegradable mohair and silk yarns, organic cotton yarn, recyclable glass pearls, made to order water-free printed fabric, as well as recycling remnant and deadstock materials. by designing these aspects into the process from the very beginning, i have kept my waste and my environmental impact to a minimum.