Designer Ksenia Glozman presents her graduation work “The Private Collection of Memories”

The graduation collection of the student of the British Higher School of Art and Design was inspired by ‘The Glass Castle’ by Jeannette Walls. In her looks, the young designer managed to show how, thanks to lightweight fabrics layering on top of each other, a memory suddenly comes to life, reminiscent of those important things that we can no longer influence.

“Memories themselves are faded paintings. Some we cherish; others are painful. There is no reason to throw them away. Just tuck those you want to keep in a safe place, to review as you wish. The past is not meant to intrude on the present”, claims the author of the famous work.

Glozman reconsidered Walls’ idea and suggested her own vision (it’s up to the viewer to choose the meaning of the word!)

A unique print with a 3-d effect was used in the collection. This innovating technique which allows "coating" the translucent layers of organza one on top of another to obtain a three-dimensional image is somewhat subtly similar to the work of the subconscious: it collects memories stored in a kind of any person’s private gallery in the same way.

The layering prints literally lay on top of each other, but this is not what makes them unique. A large number of unusual elements were used to create each of them. Birthmarks, scars and other imperfections formed the basis of the drawing, which has a whole story behind it.

“I found it captivating to ask people and to learn how they convey their emotions that overwhelmed them in the past; how they feel when speaking about enjoyable or displeasing moments which have already become memories. Then I switched to my own emotions in order to understand myself in the first place”, this is how Ksenia tells about the stage preceding the creation of sketches.

Alongside with questioning people and gathering photos and stories, the designer carried out a creative experiment: she organized two photo sessions with completely different people in different circumstances to understand their reactions.

It turned out that there are five basic elements by means of which people express their feelings of the past:

-    Imperfections; scars; spots;

-    Feelings, emotions, touches;

-    Things, scraps of the past;

-    The most important dates in a person’s life;

-    The way people themselves perceive their past.

And the looks from Glozman’s new collection can be rightfully considered the sixth element. The choice of fabrics is not accidental: according to the designer, they were supposed to convey the feeling of transience, of something airy, ethereal. That is because memories, especially of something unpleasant, quickly move to the subconsciousness leaving a barely tangible taste of bitterness. The color palette and shapes were also chosen accordingly.

The designer is especially proud of the bodysuit with a unique pattern for the first look. It is made of two layers of printed silk and divided into fragments processed with a bias tape. These details symbolize the very "scraps of the past" from which the canvas of fate is ultimately assembled.

With her collection, the author wanted to show that even if a person thinks they have no stories, they still need to look inside themselves in order to obtain the key to their memories. Is it worth while doing it? It surely is! Because “everyone has places that are impossible to forget, just because the air there remembers your happy breath”.