Adele Hamsund

Bidrag

As women and girls, we are constantly met with outside expectations and norms on how we should look, already starting form a young age. Children as young as 8 are asking for skincare products with retinol. Baby Botox has become a growing trend over the past few years, advertising to young women that they must start with injections before they get wrinkles. These are just a few examples that reflect a real fear among the younger generation for showing signs of aging.

At the same time as important feminist movements emerged through The New Woman Movement in the 1890s, Charles Dana Gibson developed the new feminine ideal through comic book characters called Gibson Girls. A Gibson Girl was a young and beautiful woman, who was also educated, independent and socially active. Even though this was an ideal that gave women greater freedom and agency, it was still a problematic character. It is nevertheless a character driven to a high degree by beauty and a youthful expression and written by a man.

I want to tell a story about rejecting unrealistic beauty standards and strict norms. I incorporate classic tailoring techniques and materials with unexpected silhouettes and new materials, such as bioplastics and shattered porcelain. These materials are things usually discarded or taken for granted, showcasing an untraditional kind of beauty. I choose to work without a single trace of plastics or synthetics, to showcase that a more sustainable and environmentally conscious practice is not an obstacle, but an opportunity for innovation and creative solutions.

My graduate collection criticizes our fears of looking older and the notion of “age appropriate” norms, holding a mirror up to today’s society’s narrow view of what a woman should look like.