tamar jacoby

Category: Apparel

Competitions: Fashion Competition 2026

The collection ״Pale Garden״ explores pallor not only as a physical appearance, but as an emotional experience. Ever since I can remember, being told that I looked pale would trigger anxiety. Through this project, I sought to transform what I once perceived as a weakness into something valuable and desirable. Inspired by the world of gardening, the collection approaches the garden as a metaphor for the human soul, a living landscape that moves through cycles of growth, decline, and renewal. Rather than celebrating nature at its peak, I focus on its quieter, less celebrated moments, revealing a different kind of beauty within fragility and imperfection. The look, titled Overexposed, draws inspiration from overexposed photography, where excessive light gradually erases an image. I became fascinated by the moment when light, instead of revealing, begins to obscure and dissolve details. Through layered silk organza, silk chiffon, silk tulle, crinkled silk, and cotton, the garment becomes a natural photograph of a field slowly erased by light. The transparency, movement, and delicacy of silk soften the silhouette, creating the sensation of an image suspended between presence and disappearance. The look is completed by a bag created from a reclaimed vintage watering can that I found, transforming an everyday gardening object into a sculptural fashion accessory while preserving its symbolic connection to care, watering, and growth. The garment is the result of an extensive material research process and custom textile development. It combines printing, knitting, embroidery, leather craftsmanship, and hand dyeing, with every technique selected not only for its material qualities, but for its ability to communicate emotion. For me, natural materials are never simply a means of construction; they carry memory, movement, fragility, and life, becoming an inseparable part of the story the garment tells.

Category: Apparel

Competitions: Fashion Competition 2026

STRINGLESS STRINGLESS draws inspiration from the life of Anna May Wong, the first Asian film star in Hollywood. Celebrated as both a cultural and fashion icon, Wong lived between Chinese and American cultures, navigating a space shaped by multiple identities, expectations, and worlds. The Chinese kite became the project's central source of inspiration. In Chinese culture, the kite symbolizes freedom and the connection between earth and sky. Suspended between flight and grounding, it exists in a constant state of tension between liberation and attachment. Much like the kite, Anna May Wong rose above the limitations of her time, yet remained tied to invisible forces of identity, social expectations, and stereotyping. The tension between Chinese and American cultures, between belonging and otherness, became a key inspiration throughout the design process. The title STRINGLESS draws from a Chinese tradition in which a kite's string is cut as a symbolic act of releasing bad fortune. For me, this gesture became a metaphor for liberation from the invisible forces that shape us. Through this project, I sought to free the figure of Anna May Wong while also creating space for anyone who feels that something still keeps them grounded. The garment was developed exclusively from natural materials: virgin wool, silk, cotton, vegetable-tanned leather, and eucalyptus wood veneer. The decision to work solely with natural materials stemmed from a desire to explore their physical qualities and the ways they respond to force, time, and movement. Each material was selected for its unique character and contribution to the project's material language. Material development became a central part of the design process. A custom technique was developed for the garment's structural elements, combining molded vegetable-tanned leather with layered eucalyptus wood veneer. The leather was soaked, shaped, and dried into three-dimensional forms before being covered with veneer. This process allowed wood to become an integral part of the garment's construction rather than a decorative element, creating lightweight sculptural structures that retain the visual presence of wood while remaining wearable. Alongside this development, crinkled silk strips were sewn side by side, inspired by the pinstripes traditionally associated with tailoring. This manipulation created a surface that conveys both movement and aging, recalling an old kite weathered by time yet still drifting through the air. By reinterpreting one of tailoring's most recognizable visual codes, the garment establishes a dialogue between tradition, time, and motion. Through the combination of tailoring, material innovation, and the symbolism of the kite, STRINGLESS explores the tension between structure and release, grounding and movement. It is a project about the possibility of liberation, not through complete detachment, but through finding freedom within tension itself.

Category: Apparel

Competitions: Fashion Competition 2025

Should I grow a thicker skin? Since I was a child, people have told me I need to grow “a thicker skin.” This phrase has followed me through the years and I thought to myself - do we really need to filter emotions? How is emotional resilience different from emotional numbness? When I think about skin, I think about the barrier between myself and the world. Skin protects and insulates the inner self, just like clothing does. That was my starting point for this project. My challenge was to design layers that offer protection and resilience while retaining sensitivity and vulnerability to the world. There was something in leather that captured the essence I sought to convey. My main visual inspiration was Benefits Supervisor Sleeping by Lucian Freud (1995). Freud often painted people sleeping - a state of vulnerability, where the body is most lethargic and unguarded. In this painting, the model lies naked and asleep. It’s a vulnerable moment, yet her body is fully present and powerful. She’s not performing or apologizing. She’s simply there. That paradox - total exposure and total presence - became the axis for my entire design. I drew inspiration from the movement of her relaxed body, from the size and proportions of a soft, fleshy form, and from the textures and tones of human skin. Material-wise, I wanted to bring tenderness into leather. I explored the dialogue between strength and softness by combining leather with delicate materials like silk, lace, and tulle. The entire piece is made from natural materials. I selected the "wrong" side of the leather - the raw, unpolished inner surface, marked with blemishes and stretch marks. To me, that side holds a statement of truth and exposure. I painted on it using skin-tone pigments, scratched and abraded it with a grater, trying to create a surface that felt unfinished, in process - raw and evolving. I wanted the leather to appear heavy and flowing, but not collapsed - A softness that still holds shape, like the flesh of a relaxed body. The smooth, outer side of the leather was turned inward, used as a lining that occasionally peeks through. This inversion allowed me to expose the hidden, both literally and symbolically. It was important for me to investigate this axis with additional aspects of nature, which brought me to the dandelion flowers where its method of defense through dispersal inspired me. The dandelion flowers aren’t sewn onto the garment, instead, I pierced tiny holes in the leather with a needle, embracing its “memory” of injury. I threaded a thin wire through, building each flower from gathered silk and natural stones. They were meant to feel loose, almost falling, stirred by movement, like petals in the wind. As the wearer walks, the flowers sway, alive in their own tempo. I wanted the piece to hang from something fragile - a fine thread holding it all together. The neckline is shaped by a thin wire that pulls inward, like a body curling into itself. I intentionally left parts of the garment unresolved - romantic, but frayed. Something suspended between sleep and dream, between rest and resistance. I wanted it to move in a way that lingers behind, even after the body has passed. The piece was designed with a sustainable mindset, ethically, functionally, and emotionally. It's one-size, with an internal drawstring that adjusts to different body types, reducing waste and extending usability. Each leather hide was used almost entirely, including areas with scars or marks, which became part of the design and the story. All materials - leather, silk, metal, and beads, are natural, and the entire piece is fully recyclable and modular. This is a garment built to last, adapt, and grow, alongside the person wearing it.