CUR(S)ED

‘CUR(S)ED’ is a collection created by 22 y.o. KASK fashion student Bart Hoste and photographed by 21 y.o. fashion photographer Valentino Zharkovsky. The whole project features Bart Hoste’s Second Bachelor’s Collection titled ‘CUR(S)ED’. Model is Skye Varuna. The silhouettes are inspired by her court dresses while the masks are inspired by fencing masks as fencing was one of her biggest passions.

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‘CUR(S)ED’ is a combination of two words, cured and cursed. The project portrays the distorted reality one’s forced to live in when the mind sinks away in despair. The origins of the concept lie in researching Empress Elisabeth of Austria’s life.

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Or more so her mental disorders and her slow road to depression. This is visible in many paintings of her, there’s an obvious change from white clothing to darker, gloomier clothing. Bart recognized many parts of himself in her story so he wanted to rewrite her story to mix it with his own personal struggles.

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The pictures show her mental state in reverse, the story starts off quite gloomy but as we go through the series we’ll see her changing moods, eventually, at the end, we get to see a very different version of her which looks like the opposite from the first silhouette.

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Although there seems to be a positive change, she’s still somewhat a prisoner of her mental state, just in a different, lighter version. Meaning that you can never completely overcome such painful moments in life.

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You’ll never be completely cured because a part of you will always linger in melancholy, you’ll always be a bit ‘cursed’.

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Credits:

Photography : Valentino Zharkovsky valentinozharkovsky.tumblr.com / @Facebook
Set Design : Valentino Zharkovsky
Make-up/hair : Stefanie V.
Model : Skye Varuna