Portrait of You, was designed by Jenitha Paulin R and Sahana S, students of BSc. in Fashion an Apparel Design at JD School of Design powered by JD Institute of Fashion Technology, Bengaluru for JD Design Awards 2023. The collection paid tribute to Carl Jung.

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist who rocked the boat of traditional psychology with his ideas about the collective unconscious, dreams, and individuation. He was all about digging deep into our minds to uncover our true selves. Jung was into the concept of individuation which lays emphasis on finding your true self, embracing all those different parts of you – the good, the bad and the downright weird and becoming a whole and authentic person. According to Carl Jung’s theory, the persona and the shadow are both aspects of our personality. The persona is the mask we wear that represents the idealized version of ourselves we want others to see whereas the shadow is the unconscious, repressed part of ourselves that we do not want to acknowledge or show to others. Persona and shadow are more or less the exact opposites of one and other and yet they are as close as twins. The meeting of two personalities is like contact of two chemical substances, if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Portrait of You was a collection which was created in honour of the last book written by Carl Jung, ‘Man and his symbols’ in his attempt to make psychology more accessible to the general public. The collection was a high-street A/W collection which represents the Jungian theory of process of individuation that involves integrating the shadow and the persona to strike a balance. The silhouettes are oversized and textures represent the two personalities – distressed and ripped for shadow, quilt and fabric manipulation for the persona. The colours tell the story of the two parts. Black, beige and cool grey for shadow showing the repressed self-whereas blue, green and grey to show the masks of persona. The twin garment shows the egos of two personalities and individuation which was achieved through the colour white which represents balance.