scarred

SCARRED:

A mark left on the skin that has not healed completely.

There is a certain duality associated with destruction; on one hand we can see it as a loss. The end of an era, the falling apart of something. But at the same time one can see destruction as the act of cleansing, paving the ground for revolution and beauty. All good things have come from loss and destruction. The renaissance emerged out of the ashes of the black plague, humanity arose from the destruction of the last living beings the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Hence we can see that destruction while a loss, can lead to the creation of something beautiful and magnificent. This concept aims to capture the subjectivity associated with the perception of destruction. The dress encapsulates the idea that through destruction one can see beauty or loss. The seams of the dress are piped with rework fuse wire, and upon the burning of this wire all the seams burn away opening up the panels of the dress and leaving a charred edge on the fabric. Just like the scaring left behind after an injury. Thus the idea aims to showcase the concept of taking something pristine and transforming it through scarring. To showcase a dream that has changed through destruction, and violence. Scars on top of the skin, etched in to represent the loss and hurt that was caused by the dream. Yet at the same time one can look at these scars with a sense of pride, more of a machismo than a reason to be ashamed. Scars don’t need to be something ugly, something that is hidden. In several West-African cultures scarring is actually seen as a body decoration act. These cultures look at scaring as something beautiful a piece of art on the body. It goes back generations, symbolizing the manliness, bravery. It identified the people to the community they came from. It gave them a form of recognition for all to see. For my father his scars have always been associated with fond childhood memories, falls in the playground, jumping over a fence to sneak out of school, walking though a glass wall, or trying to save a friend. At the same time in the west there are a lot of taboos associated with scars. People tend to hid them and be ashamed off them. Scars related to self-inflicted pain and depression are often not spoken about and considered a very shut in topic. This dress aims to showcase that there is beauty in destruction and the scars that are left behind, the dream has transformed into something more beautiful and something to be proud off.