The IBDP Visual Arts program was really the first place where I learned to push myself creatively. It taught me how to experiment without being afraid of getting things “wrong,” and it helped me understand that my ideas didn’t have to fit neatly into one medium or one technique. I spent those two years trying new materials, questioning my own habits, and learning how to trust my instincts. It was also where I started to understand that problem-solving and creative thinking aren’t separate skills, they feed into each other.

Somewhere along the way, I realized how much I was drawn to fashion. Not just clothing, but the way style can say things that words sometimes can’t. That discovery became the heart of my Visual Arts exhibition. I wanted to explore emotions, the complicated and messy ones, through clothing and visual imagery. Instead of explaining how a feeling should be interpreted, I wanted the viewer to sense it. To feel the tension, the confusion, the confidence, the loss of self, the overthinking. All of it.

I’ve always believed that clothes can reveal parts of us we don’t know how to say out loud. What we wear, even on days when no one sees us, is a kind of language. In my work, I tried to translate emotions into that language using color, texture, shape, and material. These pieces are my interpretation of what it feels like to be trapped, controlled, unsure of who you are, and also what it feels like to break out of those states. The exhibition was as much about my own experiences as it was about the viewer’s response. It let me express something honest and personal, and it opened the door to the relationship I now have with fashion as a form of storytelling.