Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Beholder examines the garment as more than protection or decoration — it becomes a vessel for perception. By embedding glass into fabric, the dress transforms into a threshold between body and world, presence and absence, concealment and revelation. The interplay of translucent panes and opaque textiles invite viewers to look, while also asking them to question the ethics of looking.

The title Eye of the Beholder underscores this tension. While the phrase suggests that beauty lies in the gaze of the viewer, this garment resists such passivity: it watches back. Historically, eyes placed on the body — from Polynesian mata hoata tattoos to Baltic sun-eye rosettes and Mediterranean talismans — served as symbols of guardianship and vigilance. Here, those traditions are reframed in a contemporary body-scale form, where stained glass becomes both ornament and armor.

Eye of the Beholder asks whether clothing is simply something we are looked at through, or whether it can itself become a perceiving entity — a garment that commands presence, protects, and confronts the dynamics of voyeurism and power.