The concept of THE BANNER emerged in 2019 during a period of exploratory research focused on experimentation and play rather than garment production. I was curious about visual languages that unite humans across millennia, such as emblems, heraldry, tribal motifs, and ideological marks, the graphic shorthand through which groups declare who they are.
I had been reading Bruno Munari’s Design as Art (P. 1966), a book that reframed design as shaping human perception and character. Munari’s emphasis on design’s ability to educate the eye, refine sensibility, and cultivate a conscious relationship with the environment became crucial. If design could build character, could it also rebuild identity? Could it become an instrument for reimagining the self?
This question guided early sketches. I experimented with graphic abstraction, reducing the human face to geometric shapes and solid colors. Stripping the portrait to its elemental forms, the image became universal and familiar, yet not fixed.
From these experiments emerged the base pattern for THE BANNER—a shifting emblem of becoming, not a flag of allegiance. It functions like Munari’s notion of design: a tool that shapes perception, challenges the viewer to reconsider familiarity, and encourages the wearer to participate in their identity’s construction.
THE BANNER is not about nationalism or belonging to a predefined group. It’s about the fluid territory between identities—adopting new forms, deconstructing inherited symbols, and crafting a declaration in constant motion. It acknowledges identity as woven, re-stitched, and continually reimagined.
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