Fashioning empathy: What would the uncertainty of living with a rare skin disorder appear to be through the lens of fashion? 

Pharma giant Boehringer Ingelheim tasked students from The Fashion Institute of Technology’s DTech innovation lab to reply the query with their addition to The Unwearable Collection, a line of conceptual garments made in collaboration with Dutch artist Bart Hess in 2022 to boost awareness for generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP). 

The brand new design, titled “Trapped by Uncertainty,” was unveiled Tuesday evening at a personal ceremony inside FIT’s Katie Murphy Ampitheatre and takes its inspiration from firsthand accounts of those experiencing the disease.

“Flares are episodic, however the disease never goes away,” said Claudia Beqaj, executive director of dermatology, sales and marketing at Boehringer Ingelheim during opening remarks. “These patients live in fear and uncertainty of when that next flare could potentially occur.”

Together with mentorship from Hess, students worked under the supervision of FIT faculty members comparable to DTech Lab executive director Michael Ferraro to spin this sense into couture. “We began the creative direction by specializing in the ethereal and diaphanous nature of uncertainty,” he said, before outlining the thoughtful decisions behind each detail of the garment. 

GPP, which causes severe bouts of tension and depression, led the scholars to work exclusively in a somber palette of grays and blue-greens. Clouds of gazar mesh sprout up from the bottom evoking what Ferraro described as a “psychological fog,” while swaths of Lycra are tightly wound across the mannequin constraining the arms like a mummy to indicate a lack of control. Finally, crystals dotted throughout the outside of the garment represent pustules, nodding to the person great thing about those experiencing the disease as well.

“Trapped by Uncertainty” will likely be permanently added to Hess’ 4 original designs — “Pain of Isolation,” “Physical Pain,” “Life-Threatening” and “Flair Intensity,” which the artist described as being more about physical pain, adding, “the fifth piece is more emotional and I believe that’s beautiful.”

“My background isn’t in fashion, I’m a product designer, but [the students] really have the talents of working with fabric, which was amazing to see how different their minds are and the way they’ll create shapes and tell stories,” he continued. 

The Unwearable Collection will travel to Singapore for the GPP Forum and World Congress of Dermatology in July before returning to Recent York where it is going to be displayed at FIT from Sept. 14 to Oct. 15.