The Weight of Masculinity
Central Saint Martins BA Final Collection, 2020
This collection was created within the final year of my BA at Central Saint Martins where I studied Fashion: Print. Masculinity within society is something I have always been intrigued by. In many family structures young males have to adopt the role of the man from an early age. Within my own family growing up, this was apparent with my brother. The pressures he felt to be a man in situations and how he felt he had to adopt this role is what made me want to further explore this within my work. Society places heavy expectations on young men of the rigid ideas of what masculinity is, but something I am keen to visually explore is to display a more delicate, gentle side of masculinity.
Chairs carry the literal weight of people, this is shared with ideas about what young males do for their family structures. Chairs are something we as humans have designed to carry our physical weight and so we can take the weight off our feet. My collection is to visually display the weight, burden and pressures that young men have to carry, through objects we as a society have invented to carry our weight. The weight and burden inspiration will also reach into researching bag design and how different cultures globally carry weight and burden.
The materiality of wood speaks of the strength young men display, but in the form I am developing it in, it has a fragile fluidity. It has distinctly progressed from being chair structures to sculptures that echo at chair forms. My collection contextualises young men who are images of strength and stability, proudly showing their vulnerabilities and gentleness.
This collection was created within the final year of my BA at Central Saint Martins where I studied Fashion: Print. Masculinity within society is something I have always been intrigued by. In many family structures young males have to adopt the role of the man from an early age. Within my own family growing up, this was apparent with my brother. The pressures he felt to be a man in situations and how he felt he had to adopt this role is what made me want to further explore this within my work. Society places heavy expectations on young men of the rigid ideas of what masculinity is, but something I am keen to visually explore is to display a more delicate, gentle side of masculinity.
Chairs carry the literal weight of people, this is shared with ideas about what young males do for their family structures. Chairs are something we as humans have designed to carry our physical weight and so we can take the weight off our feet. My collection is to visually display the weight, burden and pressures that young men have to carry, through objects we as a society have invented to carry our weight. The weight and burden inspiration will also reach into researching bag design and how different cultures globally carry weight and burden.
The materiality of wood speaks of the strength young men display, but in the form I am developing it in, it has a fragile fluidity. It has distinctly progressed from being chair structures to sculptures that echo at chair forms. My collection contextualises young men who are images of strength and stability, proudly showing their vulnerabilities and gentleness.
