Rebecca Cennini

Fashion Design - BA (Hons)

As Vivienne Westwood said: 'The way you dress is an expression of your personality'.

I have always been passionate about fashion, even as a child I wouldn't let my mother dress me, I would open my wardrobe every morning before going to school and would choose the craziest things I had and dress myself according to my mood. The connection I was making between emotion and the way I dressed, I carried it with me over the years, made it evolve. This made me realise the important connection that fashion can have with self-expression. It intrigued me even more, that my ideas could materialise into wearable garments that express something true, so that what we wear is a representation of ourselves and our emotions, making the design reflect ourselves.

Fashion for me is a fundamental tool that can change anything, I take inspiration from many cuture artists who create sculptures as a representation of fashion and ourselves. Fashion for me is like the first language, a mute identity. A quote that is very important to me from Miuccia Prada: 'What you wear is your way of presenting yourself to the world, especially today when we live in an era where human contact is so rapid. Fashion is an instant language.'

I am an aspiring fashion designer of womenswear and create abstract and peculiar shapes. I use innovative shapes, I draw on personal experiences while addressing social issues of the society I live in.

I play a lot with material manipulation, trying my hand at my artistic side and creating shapes that can look like sculptures representing emotions contrasting with colours in such a way as to create ineteressential contrasts and combine artistic sculpture with the visuality of colours.

I like to try my hand at new techniques and this allows me to create dynamic and innovative designs. I always take inspiration from my personal life.

I usually draw inspiration from my passion for sculptures by artists who explore themes based on psychology and my personal life experiences to explore very sensitive and current concepts that are very important to me. I think that what we wear, is a representation of ourselves and our emotions, design has to tell the story.

For me fashion is a very important way of communication, I think that in this moment in time it is a remarkable identity band, as well as helping people to express their emotions and feel themselves.

Collection Concept

My graduation collection is called 'The Lifelines' and is a womenswear collection Autumn / Winter 2023 / 2024 which is inspired by domestic abuse where it tells the story of my mother's personal life, it tells the beginning of when it all started until today.

From a visual point of view, the collection is inspired by an elegant interpretation of 90's sportswear. It used colours that represent the change from negative to positive emotions during the journey of life.

The darker colours represent negative emotions, such as sadness, anger, fear of not succeeding, the lighter colours represent positive emotions, such as happiness, courage, the desire to get back into the game and change.

During the course of life, negative emotions are transformed into positive ones, demonstrating the power of change, giving a message of strength to all women who have suffered violence in their lives and are still suffering from it.

The ruffles present an up and down life inspired by the psychological and physical violence my mother suffered, the movements are reminiscent of past episodes where there was no time to breathe, it was all very hectic with the fear every second that something worse could happen.