BRIDE PRICE

"Bride Price" is a conceptual art project that employs fashion photography and garment design as its medium. Transcending the aesthetic boundaries of traditional fashion, it transforms clothing into a narrative vehicle that carries historical memory and social critique. The work focuses on the "child bride" system—a narrative long obscured by mainstream history—and translates abstract gender-power dynamics and feudal oppressive values into tangible visual language through material experiments with fabrics like linen and organza. The rough texture of the linen metaphorically represents the discipline and bondage imposed on the female body by traditional society, while the transparent layering of organza symbolizes the fragile "glass ceiling" within the institution of marriage. Furthermore, the hand-sewn pleats and asymmetrical cuts allude to the distorted life trajectories of women under the patriarchy.
Visually, the project constructs a tense visual field through the narrative composition of fashion photography and the model's physical performance. The model's poses, at times curled up like a fetus and at others stretching like a trapped beast, combined with the interplay of light and shadow, concretize the suppression, struggle, and silent resistance of women under the child bride system. These garments cease to be mere items of clothing; instead, they become "vessels of memory" connecting the past and the present. Bearing the forgotten experiences of women, they provide a voice to the silence hidden in the gaps of history through the reconstruction of contemporary design language. Ultimately, the work points towards a critical reflection on feudal remnants and a contemporary call for gender equality and female subjectivity, elevating fashion design beyond aesthetic function to become a powerful tool for engaging with social issues and activating historical memory.