Michelle Li

BFA Fashion Design Systems and Society

Title: Sleep Talking

Updated: August 3rd

Sleep Talking is a dreamscape of self-exploration presented in the form of a short film with garment driven narrative. With research on Freud’s theory of self, ID, Ego and Super Ego, the film set out to illustrate a dream lies between reality and fantasy, a representational journey to inner self without a definite meaning. The dream depicts the interactions between the protagonist, the Self, and the characters she encounters in her dream. Each of the characters correlates with the stages of self in Freud’s theory. To further carry out the concept into practice, it is also achieved through working with creatives from multi-disciplines. As a result, the project is a collective outcome that embodied through not only a film but also a screenplay, a collection, and costume design.

Michelle Li is a garment maker who studied at Central Saint Martins and Parsons School of Design. With a wide range of interests, she set out to break the boundaries between fashion, costume, art, and beyond. Her latest short film, Sleep Talking, demonstrates her strong interest in theatre and film. In this project, she explored the possibility of garments and how they can be redefined through movement and narrative. She also collaborated with creatives from other disciplines to really experiment with a form of expression with no easy definitions. Michelle also values the conceptual fundaments behind the designs. She wants to look at the social and cultural issues from an introspective aspect and to question her audiences’ inner selves and how they interpret the world.