Golden thread
Stitching their pieces back together
Collaborate with Fashion designers that specialise in patchwork storytelling to create the ‘Golden Stitch’ collection.
Stage 2 - NYFW highlight
Partner with the New York Fashion Week to stage Golden Thread as a highlight event, hosted on university campuses with a survivor-only cast walking the runways, reclaiming space and power where change must happen.
NYFW and the academic year share a start in September, making it a key month for both the fashion industry and universities.
Challenge
The S.O.S Campus Safety Act is a proposed bill that requires universities to have an independent advisor in every campus, as a support system for victims of Sexual Assault. How can we raise awareness of the importance to have this support and encourage signing to pass the act?
Insight
Sexual assault often leaves survivors feeling fractured, reporting that having the right support helps them put their pieces back together. Many of them get rid of the clothes they associate with their traumatic experience as they are triggering.
Idea
Give discarded, trauma-linked clothing a second life that symbolises how the support of S.O.S advocates can help survivors stitch their pieces back together. We are using these fractured pieces to create something stronger, empowered, and beautifully renewed, through the metaphor of patchwork design.
Stage 1 - collection design
Using golden thread to represent the S.O.S Campus Safety Act as the structure that provides survivors the support to build themselves up stronger and empowered.
Emphasising the importance of access to support figures by embroidering fabric patches with survivors’ real stories of how support helped them heal.
Handout fabric patches for the audience.
Stage 3 - installation
Create an on-campus installation that gives the collection and survivor stories space to be seen and felt; inviting students, parents, and academics to reflect on support systems and prompting action in support of the S.O.S. Campus Safety Act.
