Initial Concept

“Architecture is about all the senses, visual and tactile.”

This quote from the book The Eyes of the Skin by Juhani Pallasmaa became my main inspiration for creating a clothing collection.”

Pallasmaa underlines the waning tactility, plasticity, and intimacy of architecture that was once typical of the buildings of ancient primitive cultures. Our contemporary, predominantly audio-visually oriented culture neglects these aspects, and not only in the field of architecture. It seems we have indeed, as Palasmaa says, moved from the realm of touch into the dominion of sight. Sight determines the form of the objects and spaces that surround us. Touch is a primeval sense, though, and the absence of diverse tactile stimuli can lead to a sense of frustration within. It is like the times in which we find ourselves are characterized by a crisis of touch. One artistic example of this is the Compression Carpet project by Lucy McRae, which poses a bleak vision of a future in which human embrace is replaced by an impersonal machine.
I have aimed to respond to this situation and create a small collection of tops that would be more accessible to a wider audience than the original school collection.
The My Skin collection of tops creates a dialogue between overall austerity and the tactile structure created by the drawstrings.