In her influential essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin proposes a different origin for human storytelling: not the hero’s weapon, but the container. Before the spear, conquest, and conflict comes the act of gathering, carrying, and holding. The container thus becomes a tool for organising the world, preserving memory, and building relationships.
From this idea emerges The Carrier Bag Project, developed by first-year Fashion Design students as part of the Design Methodology course.
The choice of three objects to carry, hold, or gather in a post-apocalyptic future guided the functional and aesthetic research into the container. The project invites students to reflect on the relationship between content and container, between container and body, gesture, and movement, and ultimately between content, container, and narrative.
A research journey through personal and collective memory, identity, and imagination, exploring practice itself as a form of research and the design process as a tool for questioning and giving form to ideas.
Photography by Leonardo Scatà
Creative Assistant: Ambra Nascimben
Designs by
Lillian Knauf, Alessandro Maraventano, Blessing Ogbuji Nkechi, Irmak Yalcin, Vefa Sahin, Koray Çim
