Graduate collection
Elias Makhoul
Lebanese American University
Winner of the Coup de Cœur Award, Brushing Shoulders questions who has the authority to define “good taste” in the contemporary era. Inspired by John Chamberlain’s sculptures, particularly his use of discarded and compressed car parts, the collection explores transformation through fragmentation, collision, and reconstruction. It is built around fictitious narratives and imagined encounters between strangers in the streets, where fleeting interactions become exchanges of identity, emotion, and physical presence. Through garments, textures, silhouettes, and the manipulation of the body, the collection imagines individuals exchanging not only feelings, but fragments of themselves. Brushing Shoulders transforms the everyday encounter into a visual language of collision and connection, challenging conventional ideas of beauty, taste, and individuality