Description:

BRAND NEW ME is a six-look fashion collection that interrogates and parodies the social and political narratives of identity and creativity. Through an enduring romance of self-expressive creativity and its reverence within neoliberal capitalism as the key tool of the enterprising self, creativity is mythologized as a quasi-divine, morally good force, an unquestioned ideal to which one must aspire. Our modern-day understanding of creativity is therefore one which fuels the ideological reproduction of neoliberal capitalism. Within this framework, The Creative understands their identity as one which is only fully realised in the marketplace, guided to perform their identity through participation in market structures, where self-commodification is not only expected but fundamentally inseparable from creative selfhood and self-actualisation. The Creative’s identity becomes their most valuable commodity, something to be mined, packaged, and sold. Yet this identity attains reality only through recognition and validation by an audience, creating a continuous loop of performance and appraisal through consumption that sustains The Creative’s sense of self.

This collection is a response to that loop: a collection born from the need to prove I am who I say I am. By acknowledging that behind every jacket, skirt, or pair of jeans I am the product for sale, I complete the performance. I am no longer just Nancy. I am a BRAND NEW ME.

My research began by interrogating how fashion can materialise these ideas, exploring how brand identity is constructed and communicated, particularly in streetwear, where logos and motifs are repeated across garment blanks, such as t-shirts and hoodies, turning their consumers’ bodies into walking billboards. My designs reference the silhouettes of these garment types but reject the use of logos, highlighting how conditioned we are to seek them.

Just as streetwear distils brand identity into wearable form, the rituals of consumer packaging shape our interactions with products, reinforcing the idea that the brand is not only present in the product itself but in how it is presented, handled, and consumed. BRAND NEW ME sees the product and its packaging coalesce in quilted organza that mimics bubble wrap, clear vinyl that simulates plastic wrap, and mesh structures which recall honeycomb protective packing paper.

Through research into branding in streetwear, and product packaging, I investigated the levels of interaction between brand and consumer, and how brand identity is communicated not just through the product but through its presentation. BRAND NEW ME blurs the boundaries between product and packaging, person and brand, garment and designer.

BRAND NEW ME stands apart through its full embodiment of its critique. It’s not a commentary on branding, it’s a case-study. The collection is not just wearable, it’s theatrical, satirical, and immersive. The silhouettes and materials are at odds with our expectations of them, challenging comfort, complicity, and consumption, making the viewer hyper-aware of their own participation in these dynamics. This project doesn’t offer easy answers, and implicates itself in what it critiques. BRAND NEW ME embodies the paradox of The Creative under neoliberal capitalism.