Alice O'Brien

Our nature is our context; the backdrop for who we are and how we present ourselves. It determines how we relate to the colours, textures and climate that surrounds us. Interaction with natural factors dictates peoples’ individual relationship with their environment. The way wind transforms a dress, dancing with the fabric and how the tones we absorb influence our mindset. The habitat we chose or is chosen for us is often one we gravitate towards. The nostalgic feeling of returning to our hometowns is almost indescribable. No matter how much mankind tries to turn against it, we are tethered to the umbilical cord of mother nature. All of us natural matter, fibrous beings, susceptible to the inevitability of biodegradation and destined to return to the earth. Despite us, nature goes on in its continuous cycle. Sustainable practice is a principle that I hope to hold throughout my life. One method that has interested me being, the use of natural materials grown and foraged from the land sourced locally and ethically. Incidentally connecting to the idea of wearing your habitat; how we camouflage both literally and metaphorically. Through an exploration of wool and silk fibre, natural dyes and foraged ephemera I’ve attempted to create a collection of garments that epitomize certain factors of the human synergy with nature; including weather, colour and tactility. This project as well as being an investigation into the human relationship with our environment, is also a sentiment to the landscapes that I’ve personally grown up in before moving to the city next year. The changing of the leaves through the seasons observed on the daily bus route, the sea breeze and overcast skies as well as the distinct shade of magenta striped across the horizon at sunset, will forever pull me back. I have found that where we live not only effects the fashions’ we wear but also forms a large part of who we are and our nature.