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On one of my beach walks while on holiday in Thailand, I found a rather large amount of sand dollars (also known as pansy shells in South Africa, sea cookies or sea biscuits in New Zealand). I had actually been collecting capiz shells for another project and was drawn to the sand dollars because they resembled the shape and size of the shells I was keeping an eye out for.
There is something calming and tremendously beautiful about simple form and having never seen so many huge unbroken sand dollars I picked up as many as I could carry. Having encountered a couple of live ones on my walks I realised that they don’t start off white and that it is as a result of bleaching from lying in the sun that the shells lose their original purple(ish) colour.
The bleaching process happens rather quickly, usually within a day or two of lying in the sun, and subsequently the shells become increasingly fragile. It is this vulnerability that I wanted to portray as strength by making a wearable item of clothing.
With a serious lack of willing models and my acute awareness of the existence of sad Etsy boyfriends I was able to recruit my husband to model the vest by describing the concept as Mad Max meets Swiss Family Robinson.
On one of my beach walks while on holiday in Thailand, I found a rather large amount of sand dollars (also known as pansy shells in South Africa, sea cookies or sea biscuits in New Zealand). I had actually been collecting capiz shells for another project and was drawn to the sand dollars because they resembled the shape and size of the shells I was keeping an eye out for.
There is something calming and tremendously beautiful about simple form and having never seen so many huge unbroken sand dollars I picked up as many as I could carry. Having encountered a couple of live ones on my walks I realised that they don’t start off white and that it is as a result of bleaching from lying in the sun that the shells lose their original purple(ish) colour.
The bleaching process happens rather quickly, usually within a day or two of lying in the sun, and subsequently the shells become increasingly fragile. It is this vulnerability that I wanted to portray as strength by making a wearable item of clothing.
With a serious lack of willing models and my acute awareness of the existence of sad Etsy boyfriends I was able to recruit my husband to model the vest by describing the concept as Mad Max meets Swiss Family Robinson.
