WOODEN BOUND
Category: Apparel
Competitions: Fashion Competition 2025
This project explores the tension between human life and the natural world through a sustainable fashion piece: an ivory cotton dress embraced by a wooden sculpture. Together, they form a visual metaphor for our relationship with nature one of closeness, dependence, and often, harm. The dress is made from natural cotton, a biodegradable and renewable material, chosen for both its environmental value and symbolic purity. Its soft ivory tone evokes simplicity and quiet elegance, calling attention to nature’s inherent beauty without excess or artificiality. Wrapped around the body is a wooden sculpture, curved and shaped to mimic how nature grows clinging, twisting, holding. It gently embraces the wearer, but also presses in, suggesting how nature both supports us and reacts to us. This form asks a crucial question: how can something that nurtures us also be suffocated by us? By choosing sustainable materials and hand-crafted construction, the piece rejects the throwaway culture of fast fashion. It emphasizes longevity, care, and a reconnection with what we wear and where it comes from. More than just a garment, this work is a reminder: we are part of nature, not separate from it. The earth surrounds us, holds us, and sustains us yet we often take more than we give. This project invites reflection on that imbalance and encourages a more mindful, sustainable future.
