These Socks Aren't Simple

My graduate collection, These Socks Aren’t Simple is a sculptural knitwear collection exploring my disability and identity through colour, texture and form. Inspired by my lived experience with restricted mobility, my collection redefines socks as expressive objects of visibility, inclusivity and craftsmanship. Merging slow fashion values with bold, tactile storytelling about my body and daily struggles.

Collection Intention

Date 2025.

The 2025 design collection ‘These Socks Aren’t Simple’ is a textile collection informed by my lived experience facing restricted mobility due to nerve damage. Grounded in my personal values such as inclusivity, slow fashion and a wish of accessibility for all, the practice focuses on hand-made techniques, bold colours extracted from the disability flag and exploratory knitwear -challenging the typically conventionally worn forms of socks.

At its core, my collection explores the functionality of socks as a medium to explore my own disability and my struggling emotions of the constraints of my own limbs. Through the use of colours such as those on the disability flag, textures and unconventional forms, my collection redefines socks not as simple garments but as sculptural objects. The explored textures, colours and forms directly reference my own restricted mobility, creating a tactile and visual dialogue between the implied wearer, the viewer and their societal perception on disability.

Crafted through hand-made techniques such as knitting, sewing and crochet, my collection highlights the personal slow-fashion style and stitch prominent in my past works. Intended for exhibition as a series of sculptural textiles pieces, propped on varying plinth heights, the conversational collection seeks to bring visibility to those such as me, with mental or physical disabilities.

The collection ultimately highlights the connection between disability, creativity and personal identity asserting that socks, like people, are never simple.

My Community of Practice

Exploration & Sample Development

Following my project intention and artist inspirators, I created and trialled a series of knit based experiments. These knitted experiments were often combinations of techniques and textures that I felt suited the 4 main aspects of my nerve condition. Pain, Numbness, Cold and Swelling.

Eyelet Trial of cinching in knit sections using eyelets and ribbon.	Knit Toes Trial of knitting icord into toe-esque shapes.	Chainmail Trial of stiffening knit fabric by adding chainmail surface embellishment.
Cables & Eyelet Trial of mixing cables and eyelets to combine surface textures and cinching.	Sock Machine knit sock trial.	Metal Trial of metal knitting.
Jump-rings. Trial of using jump-rings to conche knit surface and add texture.	Smocking Trial of self-drafted knit smocking to look like enflamed nerves.	Cables & Wire Trial of weaving wire through cables to symbolise open nerves.
Bumps Trialling size and shape of bump texture.	Mesh Trialling of mesh textures to add colour depth and eerie blood look.	Cables Trial of complex self-drafted cable sock.