Rosy-hued shells of organza encase the wearer of these garments by Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) graduate Violet Zhou, which explore different states of mind experienced during personal struggles.
Inspired by her own personal experiences and "emotional turbulences", Zhou sought to translate certain feelings into tangible products.
Her fashion collection, titled Within, comprises six looks, each representing a different stage in the process of going through and overcoming various emotional and mental challenges.
These include angry, weighed-down, wounded, sinking, numb and emerging.

Designed to create a sense of "confinement", many of the pieces literally seal their wearer inside the garment with an outer layer of fabric. Each look progresses onto the next, until finally "emerging" from the turmoil into a lighter state of mind, where the wearer physically breaks free from the material casing.
"I wanted it to look like the model is vacuum-sealed in between two plastic sheets, with her silhouette protruding from the flat sheets and the rims of the sheets extending beyond her body," Zhou explained. "I wanted a sense of helplessness and paralysis to seep through."

The RISD graduate opted for translucent fabrics like gauze, chiffon and organza as she felt they granted a "sensuality" to the garments.
"These materials also allow the collection to play with the tension between visibility and inaccessibility,&q...