My collection centers around the idea of nostalgic memory in a search of developing my own design vocabulary. By interrogating not only my personal and familial history, but also the collective memory and narrative of post-colonial migrant Singapore, where I was born and raised, my thesis collection aims to re-examine what the conversation between East and West could look like in (fashion) design. In exploring these concepts through Menswear, I sought to challenge what is viable and acceptable on the male form in the context of fashion. What is viable outside of Western Menswear? If you designed a dress for a man, is it not Menswear? Considering the level of acceptance in Womenswear for what is ‘wearable,’ can we continue to move Menswear in the same direction? Why not? I am interested in questioning and challenging the norms of our understanding of what Menswear is, can and should be today, and beyond the 21st century. But more so than that, I hope to incorporate a larger view and voice of viability that stems from outside the Western world and Western nomenclature of clothing, be it Mens or Womenswear. By borrowing from the past, and from cultures considered ‘other,’ this collection informs something that is new and of its own, and yet entirely a celebration of our collective existence as a human race. By tapping into and recording the richness of culture, heritage and history, I thope that my work will continue to humanize the way we see and the way we design the world we live in—that the new can be the old can be the new. www.jonmaxgoh.com .