IT WAS ALL A DREAM...

“It was all a dream…”, began with Lee’s fascination with dreams, why we dream, what they mean, and how they continue to affect us long after we wake. While the details of a dream are often forgotten, the feeling remains. Lee draws parallels between this experience and the act of recalling memories, where nostalgia can blur the boundaries between the past and the present, leaving behind a similar sense of uncertainty and disorientation.

This idea is explored through a series of textiles developed from a floral motif found within one of his mother’s paintings. The motif originates from a painted curtain featuring overlapping circles that form flowers, which Lee extracts and reinterprets throughout the collection. To capture the hazy quality of dreams and memory, he creates distorted imagery by dragging familiar mementos through a scanner, producing blurred and fragmented compositions that echo the experience of remembering.

The collection traces the gradual transformation of the motif across each look. Beginning as a clearly recognisable form, it appears as cut-out detail and digital prints before progressively dissolving into abstract imagery that can no longer be easily identified. Through this process, Lee creates a visual representation of the space between memory and dream, where familiar images become distorted, fragmented, and open to interpretation.

Alongside these textiles, tailoring serves as both a personal and conceptual foundation. Inspired by memories of his mother exhibiting her work in a suit, Lee uses tailoring to honour her presence while exploring the ambiguous boundary between recollection and dreamscape.