Preserve

PRESERVE:

Maintain (something) in its original or existing state.

There comes a point in the dreams life when it can no longer survive. It has lived out its use and no longer relates to the person’s goals and ideologies, yet the preciousness of the dream makes the dreamer want to preserve it and keep it. Only to look back on it with fond memories, like homage to the dream that would never be, to bring about nostalgia of something that may have been if circumstances were different. The concept aims to encapsulate that idea of a dream, to take something and preserve it forever. The dress uses flowers, symbolic of the living dream. The rose is one of the most commonly depicted owers in the world. It is symbolic of the deepest desires of the dreamer, its most passionate dream. While on the other hand the other flowers such as the Carnations, Orchids and Lilies are traditionally wedding bouquet flowers in India. They symbolize opulence and purity. The strings of Indian Lilac are even more traditional wedding flowers, and help give a beautiful smell to the area it encompasses. The idea to use wedding flowers came from the notion of preserving wedding dresses in both Western and Eastern cultures. It is quite a common right of passage to wear your mother’s or grand mothers wedding dress and this idea of preserving something to give to someone else or allow it to have a new life is what I intended to capture through this garment. The dress conceptually was supposed to represent the living dream wilting and decaying into becoming a pristine preserved sample that could be later looked upon with fondness. The idea that there is beauty in something that is no longer. Dreams that could have been but were never realized, preserved as this idea in a fossil deep within our subconscious. As with the dream if preserved in the right manner the same was as the flowers can be frozen in time and its beauty kept forever. Yet it is important to know that if this delicate process is not followed the dream just like the flowers would decay and rot, becoming something ugly and harmful. A bit of nostalgia, it expresses the new beginnings through the preservation of the past and remembering where one came from. Taking something that brings happiness and preserving it forever. The dress aims symbolize the idea of the dream not dying but being preserved and showing the beauty of the transformation from living to dead.