PEARLESCENT ENCAPSULATION

AW 24/25

The pearl has been said to represent the journey of a soul along its path to perfection. It embodies wisdom gained over time. It offers protection and strength. A pearl is beautiful, but a pearl can only exist as the result of struggle.

They are fragile, delicate, fleeting. Some threat, a parasite or a foreign organism, enters the shell of a mollusk or oyster and disrupts its natural state. They will secrete a fluid which hardens and encases the foreign body. Layer by layer the parasite becomes encapsulated by pearlescent material. It becomes a thing of beauty as the result of a desperate instinct to survive.

Layers protect us. We hide in our own pearlescent casings, projecting our collected image of calm perfection to mask what may be broken inside. As fragile as porcelain, as delicate as the shells we crush beneath our feet without thought. Our minds are like the sea with its waves of change and reinvention. Pushed and pulled by the wind, creating ridges and valleys in the sand, stripping the earth of its skin.

 The ebb and flow of life.