Unbound
Short Description
A conceptual fashion piece inspired by the corset as one of history’s most culturally and politically charged garments. Rather than recreating the object, the work reimagines what a corset might become today. Delicate translucent membranes replace rigid structure, transforming a familiar cultural symbol into an expression of presence, vulnerability and autonomy. The work asks whether an object once designed to shape the body can instead reveal the self.
Prompt Logic
If the corset were invented today by a free woman, what would it become?
Process
The project was inspired by a visit to an exhibition exploring the history of everyday objects. I became fascinated by the corset—not only as a garment, but as an object carrying centuries of cultural, social and political meaning.
Rather than reproducing a historical corset, I began asking what its contemporary counterpart might look like. If the original object embodied restriction, what would a corset designed for a free woman become? I wanted to preserve the idea of structure, but imagine it as something elegant, almost fragile. Through iterative exploration of materiality, rigid construction gradually dissolved into translucent membranes with an almost glue-like quality. They no longer resembled fabric, and I was drawn to that tension between strength and delicacy, support and vulnerability.
Rather than beginning with a fixed message, I allowed the concept to emerge through making. As the material evolved, the work gradually shifted away from control and towards presence. Throughout the process, I was interested in reinterpreting a familiar cultural symbol rather than preserving it. The final piece questions whether the corset still exists—or whether it has evolved into something entirely new.