Final Major Project
2020-2021
My graduate collection, “Retraditionalisation”, tells the story of women in lockdown and their increased domestic workload as a result of the pandemic. The collection aims to challenge stereotypical gender roles and emphasise the weight of the burden borne by women in this period by exploring the banal chores that fell mostly onto their shoulders.
“I WILL INTERVENE WITH ALL MY STRENGTH TO ENSURE THAT A RETRADITIONALISATION DOES NOT TAKE PLACE, BUT THAT INSTEAD WE GIVE WOMEN AND MEN THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES”
- ANGELA MERKEL
My interest in this issue developed during the first national lockdown of 2020 when I read multiple reports of how lockdown reinforced gender inequality. Their research showed a regression in society as women disproportionately bore the domestic brunt of the pandemic, reinforcing traditional gender roles in the home. I wanted to create a collection that conveyed the heightened domestic duty for women through finding beauty in banality.
I explored and utilised materials and fabrications found within the household and domesticity to create and inform my outcomes. This included draping aprons, bed sheets, quilts, laundry and curtains. I found correlations between these in the form of gathers, pulls and ties and I used these fabric manipulations to visually convey the restriction women faced throughout lockdown.