Fo Phan

The sad and dark, the beauty in what is faded and a tribute to mourning.

I have chosen to work with a subject that moves me personally and that reflects the mood that I find myself in. It is a matter of mourning and I wanted to find a way of including mourning in a fashion context in a respectful manner. It is a matter of examining mourning in relation to cultural codes, my own dual identity.

In my collection, every look reflects a persona with symbolic garments and attributes. Each look also leads to a negotiation between covered and uncovered; of how much of the body can be shown having due regard to cultural norms and values. What happens when the demands of bodily integrity and propriety in more conservative contexts meet up with the fashion industry’s often hedonistic and sexualized exposure of the body?

Starting with the subject of mourning and the essential cultural concerns, I have deconstructed and re-coded in a manner that I consider dignified. Abstract interpretations of irises – a feature of Chinese funerals – play an important role in the collection. What happens with the symbolism when the flower appears in a new context? For me, mourning is something intimate and it is not certain that it can be expressed in the field of fashion.