Frankenstein's Unnamed...showing at Piccolo Spoleto

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This dress is inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I loved reading this in school and thought that there was an interesting connection to how Victor Frankenstein’s creature was a result of man-made reckless ambition, and similar things can be said about how mankind has a plethora of plastic and non-recyclable waste as a result of our own reckless ambitions.

In the story, Victor Frankenstein creates a creature by stitching together different human parts, so I wanted my design to feel constructed rather than naturally made.

The “skin” of the dress is created from my sister’s worn ballet pointe shoes. When pointe shoes are new, they’re hard, and shiny, but once they’re used, they look stretched, torn, and almost human. I liked the idea that each shoe already had a life before becoming part of something new, just like the creature in the novel.

I held the pieces together with red rope to represent the stitching and intensity of the creation process. Instead of hiding the seams, I made them really visible so the viewer can see how the dress is assembled. The rope looks like sutures or veins, emphasizing that this body was built piece by piece. I placed the hard toe of a pointe shoe as the shoulder on one side, and used ballet tights as a collar, two details of which I am particularly proud of.

The main reference I intended to include in this garment, however, is the striking sight of a bloody liver. This was strategically set as a reference to the Greek myth of Prometheus, the Titan who gave fire to humanity, and therefore caused civilization. As a punishment, an eagle would eat his liver everyday, just for it to regrow and be eaten again the next day. As gruesome as this is, It is often connected to Frankenstein, as the book is often referred to as “The Modern Prometheus”.

Overall, the dress connects to Frankenstein by showing a figure that is made from separate parts and held together in a raw way. It explores themes of creation, identity, and what it means to be human when something is assembled rather than born.

Selected as a New York City Finalist for Junk Kouture, 2026, Columbia Design League's Runaway Runway at Museum of Art, Columbia, SC,  Porter-Gaud School Arts Festival and 2026 Piccolo Spoleto Juried Exhibition at The City Gallery..