METAMORPHOSIS

Show Notes:

For their 2025 Graduate Collection Sam Brown explores a fictional world in which humans undergo a moth-like metamorphosis, translating the experience of transition into experimental garments using innovative materials and unconventional pattern cutting techniques creating a multi-sensory experience for the wearer, rooted in nature.

Subverting its associations with fetish-wear, Brown recontextualises latex into a 'skin' that becomes an extension of the body, altering how the body is perceived through the use of intricate draping and padding.

Mirroring the journey of transition in order to align with the true self; the garments become less restrictive from the initial leather straitjacket, signifying the process of becoming one's true self, and completing the process of metamorphosis.

The collection focuses on the process of creation rather than the final product. Throughout the construction process the garment's designs continually evolved due irregular properties of the natural materials. If the collection was to be reproduced it would be impossible to completely replicate.

Brown invites the wearer to consider the impact of the skins used throughout the collection. The raw edges of the lambskin hides have a significant impact on the final silhouette of all the garments giving a second-life to the animals and, in some strange way; a deliberate choice to represent the alarming rise of transgender people being used as a political 'sacrificial-lamb' to misdirect the attention away from the ways in which the government has failed the working class.

In the way that one must accept the death of the past self to move forwards to the true self, the collection will eventually biodegrade when its lifespan is up, perhaps when it is forgotten about; but it will return to the earths soil to grow new life once again.