Now I Feel Beautiful

Competition Entry

Project: Now I Feel Beautiful
Use: Pavilion/Intervention
Year: 2018
Location: Montpellier, France
Role: Lead Designer & Visualiser
Competition: Festival des Architectures Vives 2019

Beauty has been the subject of studies for centuries. What is beautiful? Who is beautiful? What does it mean? No matter when you ask this question and how society is influenced to think of beauty, beauty is, in fact, a sense of happiness, a sense of pleasure that could be triggered by anything. This proposed intervention brings two sides of beauty together: the physical and the psychological aspects.

The physical aspect of this intervention is inspired by the 19th-century French invention crinoline. The circular structure which shaped ladies skirts to appear more full which was considered more beautiful. The psychological aspect of this intervention is to quantify the sense of happiness and pleasure that beautiful things generate. The exaggerated fabric layers form a flowing skirt which is creeping up the surrounding walls as if it is reaching the sky. The crinoline structure which allows the visitors to walk it up and stand inside this skirt, above the ground level, and become one with the intervention, with space and with the sky: “Now I feel beautiful”.

The aim of this proposal is to allow visitors to interact with this intervention by standing inside the skirt no matter what their gender, age or background. Beauty is not something that can be standardised nor measured, beauty is a feeling that can be achieved. Here, it is achieved by inspiring the visitors to become one with the space.

Whether feeling beautiful, joyous or just playful, the visitors can spend time walking under the fabric, trying the skirt, looking up at the sky through the tulle, or take a photograph as the skirt gives an opportunity to an ‘Instagramable’ moment!