Design Challenge and Design Ideas

‘HAIL THEE – WE COME IN REVERIES OF CHANGE’ is a sensory incantation by designer Alison Conneely in partnership with UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, using fashion as a medium for social and environmental change.

In a series of symbolic scarves, international artists from Iran to Uruguay responded to Conneely’s call to action, to ‘wear the word upon our shoulders’. These scarves are wearable actions, wearable solidarity, and declarations of bodily autonomy.

Conceived in the aftermath of the Repeal Referendum in Ireland, this project gestated through a global health pandemic and worsening climate crisis. Birthed in the wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade, no matter the month, decade, or century, the female body continues to be a battleground.

Each scarf is an original artwork, silk screen printed. Creating a commercial product to raise vital funds for a cause, using original artworks, presented multiple challenges.

How the brief was fulfilled

This Universal Design project allows us to ‘wear the word upon our shoulders; or hold as a banner.

Fons Lacrimae
“In response to maternal autonomy”
Fons Lacrimae takes us to the night sky where we see the great figures of our classical past lifted up to heaven as constellations to remind us of our mythic origins.

The Weighing of The Heart
“In response to worldwide calls for fairness in judicial systems”
In this otherworldly tale Paula McGloin creates a celestial courtroom with the weighing of the heart against the feather of truth.

Eros Cresciente
“In response to violence against women”
Eros Cresciente is the scarf of Medusa and her sigils, recreating an electrifying force that connects to the sacred and divine.

She Shall Return
“In response to global reproductive rights”
Jesse Jones takes the figure of the Sheela Na Gig as a matriarchal icon from pre-Christian Ireland and turns it into a portal through which reproductive rights return to us.

Not One More (as homage to Ni Una Menos)
“In response to earth rights, to protection of land and water”
In this sash of shifting sands, Jahnavi Inniss invokes the symbols of First Nations Cultures and the indigenous Métis people.

We Don’t Fold our Hands Together
“In response to defiance and solidarity against oppression”
We don’t fold our hands together conjures a monolith of solidarity. Inspired by the Pakistani poet Rukhsana Ahmad’s poem, We Sinful Women.

Medal No. 6
“Medal for mothering in war & revolution”
Per Ardua Ad Astra – This Mother Medal honours the women & carers forgotten in war; the warriors, the leaders, the nourishers, the walkers, and those who carry seeds.

Journey of a Tear
“In response to the plight of refugees”
This is a story of hope in transit; evoking our moving, crossing and traversing land and sea since the beginning of time.

Löwenmensch
“In response to transformation & unity”
38,000 BCE to today
Löwenmensch joins animal and human; unites the earth and the sky, the real and the imaginary, the past and the present. They declare the capacity for beautiful transformation that work and imagination gifts our species.