Wearable Thesis 2025
Wearable Thesis is an exhibition of designed outcomes from a linked sequence of MFA courses—DESI 605 and DESI 621—taught by Stella Colaleo. An extended project challenged students to conceptualize and create contemporary wearables that synthesize and express themes from their MFA theses, while demonstrating mastery of innovative material processes. Students gained valuable professional experience by working closely with local artisans and makers, collaboratively realizing their unique individual works.
Special thanks, for support from the VCUarts Qatar Office of Research and Development
VCUArt Qatar (2025)
DESI 605 Design process and
ethic for business
DESI 621 Leadership&Entrepreneurship
Students:
Fatima Abbas, Shima Aeinehdar, Maryam Altajer, Saga Ahmed, Syed Naqvi Erzum, Yasamin Shaikhi, Ayza Sheikh
Photo: Sunny Dave
Unfolding Nature
FATMA ABBAS
This brooch series reflects the phenomenon of emergence, where complexity arises from simple interactions. Each piece pairs a fixed structural frame with a 3cm x 3cm patina plate that evolves over time through oxidation. These patinas, changing naturally, symbolize nature's creative unpredictability. The brooches explore the balance between permanence and transformation, translating a scientific concept into wearable reflection. Unfolding Nature invites viewers to contemplate the quiet, evolving beauty of natural systems-and the elegance found in change itself.
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Honoured Waste
YASAMIN SHAIKHI
Crafted from rice and date waste, this headpiece transforms discarded material into a tribute to harvesters' labor. Inspired by sun-shielding head coverings, it reveals traces of grains and fibers, maintaining a tactile link to its origins. Shaped by experimentation and material constraints, the piece blends innovation with memory. It challenges perceptions of waste, reimagining it as a beginning rather than an end—a space where sustainability, tradition, and beauty entwine in a gesture of reclamation and cultural respect.
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Crafted Connections
SAGA MOHAMED AHMED
This wearable jewelry project bridges traditional craftsmanship and digital fabrication. Four stainless steel frames were 3D-printed and passed to artisans, who chose the form best suited to their practice-ceramics, weaving, glassblowing, or biomaterials.
Handcrafted elements embedded cultural heritage into each piece.
The result is a collaboration that merges digital precision with human expression. Crafted Connections promotes shared authorship and cross-disciplinary exchange, proposing a future where craft and technology evolve together while supporting creative economies and preserving cultural identity through design.
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Rings of Spirituality
MARYAM ALTAJER
This collection of rings integrates natural materials and Islamic symbolism to create spiritually meaningful jewelry. Each ring holds a distinct metaphysical function: frankincense for purification, sidr leaves for protection, and myrrh for healing. Inscribed with Muqatta'at-mysterious Quranic letters believed to hold sacred power-the rings offer a multisensory experience through scent, texture, and form. Bridging historical belief and contemporary aesthetics, the project reimagines Islamic material culture, inviting renewed appreciation for the spiritual depth embedded in everyday adornment.
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Interwoven Legacies
AYZA SHEIKH
This project celebrates the intimacy and continuity of hair braiding between mothers and daughters. Encased in a hand-carved wooden box, the "hair braiding kit" includes a comb, a custom paranda, and copper and gold charms. Each generation adds a charm while braiding their daughter's hair, transforming the kit into a living archive. As copper oxidizes, it marks time and ancestry. Gold represents protection and inheritance, binding grandmother, mother, and daughter together across generations in a shared ritual of care.
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The Threads that Bind Us
SYED NAQVI
This project reinterprets the Mughal archer's thumb ring for modern kite fighting. Traditionally ornate and made of jade or gold, these rings gain new meaning during Pakistan's Basant festival, where kite strings can be sharp and dangerous. Minimalist silver and leather rings protect fingers while enhancing grip. This contemporary design honors historical functionality while reviving cultural traditions. By adapting a martial object into a playful tool, the project connects past and present, merging protection, heritage, and joyful cultural expression.
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Beneath the Roots
SHIMA ABINEHDAR
Inspired by mangroves, this hand piece explores indigenous knowledge and ecological belonging. Mangroves thrive in harsh environments, excreting salt through their leaves—a process echoed in the design's form. The jewelry invites physical interaction with nature, encouraging care and reciprocity. Rooted in spirituality, science, and storytelling, the project proposes "becoming native" through harmony with the natural world. It reflects a shift toward sustainable, interconnected futures, transforming affection for the land into action, and jewelry into a gesture of reverence.
