Icelynne's graduate collection is named “The Beauty in Death”. This collection explores the admiration of an unconventional idea of death, the beauty in the un-beautiful. This can be seen in my most recent collection where she emphasized her designs on a recent lost of her grandfather. The concept behind the process of decay that occurs when a human dies can be seen emphasized throughout her collection.
The motivation behind this project is very personal as it stems from her experience of losing a family member. The death of my grandfather has brought all her family members closer together, and for that, they pushed aside all of their differences and problems by highlighting what is really important in life, whilst showing compassion, care and desire to support each other. This experience made me realize how natural the human death is and how it can bring people together to celebrate his special last day.
She gained inspiration in the advancement we’ve made as humans in the medical field. The mask was inspired by the invention of it in the medical field in 1960s. Of course, the masks then were flawed and it has advanced so much today those facemasks and respirators are widely used in the medical field now. Eerily, these masks have become a necessity in our daily life now.
Through this collection, she wanted to challenge everyone’s perception towards death. Don’t just treat death as something that is somber; treat it with bravery and compassion and to accept death as part of a beautiful end to a wonderful journey. As she believes, without death there is no life and without life there is no death.
The whole collection is based on death and life co-existing with one another. She decided to use red to represent life and black as a symbol of death. The red represents the flesh and blood of the living body, which depicts life. The black represents the decaying and rotting of the body when the human dies.
To further compliment my collection, she collaborated with Andres Rivera, who is an expert in 3D-prints, for my final design. The incorporation technology into my collection was due to my inspiration towards the advancement of human technology in delaying or even escape the inevitable-death.
