The Branch of Life is my graduation collection, shown as the 2017 A/W season.

I spent most of that year on fabric: crushing, pleating, layering, pressing gold leaf into cloth until it started to resemble bark, stone, foam on water. The sketchbooks filled faster than the garment rail — behind every look on the runway there are pages of swatches that didn't survive.

Looking back, this is the project that taught me how I work: start with the material, let it misbehave, and design around what it wants to do.