Parsons Thesis - Folded Narratives: A Wearable Autobiography
Folded Narratives: A Wearable Autobiography is a practice-based design project that explores the relationship between identity, memory, and material translation through fashion and communication design. Rooted in the belief that clothing functions as a language, I investigate how the wearable can become readable, and how personal narratives can be expressed beyond traditional textual forms. Inspired by autobiographical writing, I approach this project as a translation between mediums—where papers, colors, and forms become a language through which identity is revealed. As a Communication Designer, for me, fashion—the clothes we choose to wear and the objects we carry—becomes another form of communication, where meaning is constructed through both form and experience.
The project consists of a trilogy of three wearable books and three corresponding readable garments, each representing a stage of my life: childhood in Florida, adolescence in Wuhan, and adulthood in New York. These paired pieces function as interconnected chapters of my identity, forming a cohesive narrative system that is simultaneously tactile, visual, and conceptual. The garments, designed as modular and transformable vests, invite viewers to read through touch, layering, and movement. Through this cyclical process—wearable to readable and back again—I aim to challenge the conventional boundaries between fashion and publication, object and text. Ultimately, Folded Narratives becomes more than a project; it is a form of autobiography that I construct through materials and the body—one that is not only read, but worn, experienced, and continuously rewritten.
Garment–Book System — Florida.
Readable Garment — Florida.
Readable Garment Lookbook — Florida.
Wearable Book — Florida
The End - Florida Chapters.
Garment–Book System — Wu Han.
Readable Garment Front Side — Wu Han.
Readable Garment Back Side — Wu Han.
Readable Garment Lookbook — Wu Han.
Readable Garment detail shoot — Wu Han
Wearable Book — Wu Han.
The End - Wu Han Chapters.
Garment–Book System — New York.
Readable Garment — New York.
Readable Garment — New York.
Readable Garment Lookbook — New York.
Wearable Book — New York.
