DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE?
This menswear project was inspired by Cher- her distinctive visual identity, Armenian heritage, and her ability to transform what is often perceived as unconventional into an essential part of her artistic expression.
The project explores the fear of growing older and the physical transformations that come with time. I focused on the changing surface of the body: the way skin wrinkles, stretches, and carries traces of experience, and how tattoos and other permanent marks transform along with it. These ideas were translated into layered silhouettes, contrasting textures, lace, metallic surfaces, and materials that evoke the changing qualities of skin.
The butterfly’s life cycle became an additional metaphor for this process. A butterfly spends most of its existence in transformation- from caterpillar to cocoon before finally emerging into the form we associate with beauty and freedom. Yet this final stage lasts only briefly.
Through this contrast, the project questions our fear of aging and our attachment to youth. Rather than seeing transformation as a loss of beauty, the garments explore the marks left by time as part of an evolving identity- suggesting that beauty can exist not despite change, but within it.
