"One Never Knows" 2024

“One Never Knows”, the Pearly Queen motto and title of my graduate collection, looks to examine processes of self-adornment in the physical expression of one’s evolving identity. As a Londoner, I wanted to highlight a community unique to London: the pearly kings and queens, who use their pearly button covered suits as a canvas for personal storytelling.

Through conversations with the Pearlies, I was able to gain a richer understanding of how this niche community use their suits to express their identity, using signifiers of lived experiences as motif for adornment. This pictorial language demonstrated to me the power of hidden codes within adornment and their connection to individual identity. My outcomes reflect these hidden codes using specific motifs drawn from my own lived experiences, and that of others. The process of collecting these stories led to the emergence of new identities. Woven into and embellished on top of my samples, they act as ‘badges’ of a collective identity.

The collection is entirely naturally dyed using exclusively natural fibres and uses woven, laser cut buttons I developed as embellishment.