On the third Sunday of my fifth year in New York, I came home from another dull date with a stranger. Lying on my bed, I realized my life had become a loop: classes at fixed hours, identical cocktails, and the same subway line returning to the same apartment. Sleep. Wake. Repeat. The rhythm inside me mirrored the city itself. Everywhere I looked, I saw circles—subway signs, traffic lights, wayfinding dots. These symbols guide how bodies move through space, yet I felt trapped inside their rhythm: fast, structured, and emotionally fragmented. In that choreography, the city became a diagram of the fashion industry’s own extractive, capital-driven pace.
To understand this rhythm, I began documenting the city’s visual noise. I photographed strangers wearing polka dots on the subway and captured the infinite repetition of circular signage. Through my lens, these scattered dots transformed into musical notes on a score—rhythmic pauses in the city’s static. I realized the circle is not just a symbol of monotony, but a tool for emotional calibration. If New York’s and the fashion industry’s linear speed fragments us, the wholeness of the circle offers a way to restore completeness. I treat the circle as a mediating form between the chaotic urban environment and the individual body.
In this collection, I transform the circle from a visual motif into a structural logic. I developed a one-piece circular system, exploiting the inherent bias grain of the form to allow the fabric to drape fluidly. This "liquid" structure flows over the body, combining exposed darts and steam manipulation to transform flat, 2D geometry into sculptural 3D volume without side seams.
Crucially, I use heat-formed acrylic to create rigid, anti-gravity structures. Rather than a restriction, these act as hard "sensory anchors." By physically slowing down the wearer's movement, they force the body to pause and acknowledge its own presence against the city's and the fashion industry’s frantic speed. On the textile surface, screen-printed sand and hand-crafted sand badges clash with smooth vinyl, creating a dialogue between abrasive realism and artificial gloss. Coupled with sound buttons that chime with movement, the garments become "physical scores"—tactile and audible.
Ultimately, this collection establishes a series of "Emotional Coordinates." It acts as a physical counter-narrative to the city’s and the fashion industry’s numbness. By translating intangible rhythms into heavy acrylic accessories, rough sand prints, and sculptural volume, I give physical weight to overlooked emotions. The garment transforms the passive act of "being dressed" into an active state of somatic awakening—reminding the body that it still holds the capacity to feel.