Shenkar | The Department of Fashion Design Presents: The Class of 2025

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The Department of Fashion Design at Shenkar is proud to present the graduate projects of the class of 2025.
Our graduates reach the finish line after a personal and collective journey through one of the most tumultuous periods in Israeli history. Their four years of study were accompanied by extensive social, political and cultural upheaval, all of which came to a head in the last month, as the students grappled with the uncertainty and longing for hope of our times.

This period has given rise to works of emotional depth and conceptual clarity. They provide consolation but are unflinching in their criticism; they are personal and local yet echo universal voices. These are not just designer clothes. They are sincere statements born of inquiry, reflection and response to a world around in search of meaning.

The graduate collections reveal a candid and courageous perspective on the world, introducing a new generation of fashion designers whose work is based on exploration, responsiveness and deep thought. The decision to create, especially when this work is tinged with pain, is no less than an act of sanity and commitment to life. Sources of inspiration range from self-observation to outdoor landscapes, offering a sober and often poetic commentary on an era filled with contradictions. Within an ongoing rift, they chart new paths to emotional and environmental spaces and to the continuity of design in the future.

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The main themes of the graduate projects include:

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Multi-faceted identity: Between the individual and the collective

Identity is a central theme of this year's collections. The projects explore gender, ethnic, religious and community identities, making the body a charged space of emotional baggage.
The works explore how the pain of immigration and assimilation is concealed and exposed, and the longing to retain an identity in danger of being erased. One collection explores the identity of "secret Muslims" in Tehran, with a dual focus on costume and the inner self. Another created a clothing archive of the heritage of Kurdish Jews as a living dialogue that flows between the traditional and the contemporary. Other projects examine roots from Yemen, Morocco and even Israel’s periphery, while offering a fresh reading on the relationships between the body and clothing, gender, sexuality and society.

 

The body as place: Vulnerability, protection, crisis and coping

The body present in the projects is not self-evident.
It responds to its environment, bears trauma, seeks embrace or restraint. Some collections seek to envelop, others to camouflage and some even to restore control.
The designs were born out of a keen bodily awareness: Fear, mourning and disquiet combined with a clear statement of endurance.

The national and personal trauma of October 7 is present in many of the works, like a layer of cloth bearing memory and bereavement. There is an engagement with the female body in the tension between modesty and the desire for personal expression, as well as an intimate exploration of tenderness and vulnerability.

 

Listening to the environment: Nature, city, body and landscape

Several collections direct the gaze outward: to the landscape, nature and the surrounding spaces.
Here, design becomes a tool for documenting climate wounds or landscape memories. It expresses an intimate connection between body and space. 

Several works examine wounded industrial landscapes, crumbling urbanity and what can be identified as "internal migration” — a sense of displacement within the country itself. Alongside these are poetic homages to poppies, roots and desert light.

Climate change is translated into direct configurations such as underwater phenomena interpreted through structural deconstruction, fading colors represented in embroidery, and sculptural techniques in fabric. Other collections present charred fabrics in earth tones, expressing the connection between external chaos and emotional crisis. 

 

Humor and subversiveness

In times of uncertainty, humor and emotion become powerful means of expression.

In many collections, the garment serves as a space of inquiry, examining social structures, dismantling icons, referencing and criticizing, all while formulating alternative proposals.

Deconstructed and recreated wedding dresses examine the institution of marriage as a cultural symbol.
A menswear collection reimagines the image of the “Israeli guy-next-door” with humor and exaggerated stylistic features. Another project creates a vacation fantasy as an ironic reading of the dreams we chase.

 

Material as archive and memory

Many of the works this year come from an intimate exploration of personal or familial memory, with the garment as a sort of living archive that carries layers of stories. The textile design, silhouette and technique serve as ways of processing experiences that are embedded in body and material.

The tension between tradition and progress is expressed in old work clothes, forgotten customs, and objects passed down in inheritance and belonging to a world gone by. All underwent a formative and emotional transformation as they were translated into garments from local materials, handcrafted embroidery and nostalgic layers combined using smart fashion technologies. Fashion thereby becomes a space that touches memory, delves into open wounds, and at times even offers a process of healing and repair. Design, in this case, is both an act of creation and a way of speaking a truth that is not always possible to express in words.

 

We invite you to explore and enjoy the show.

Ilan Beja
Head of the Department of Fashion Design
Shenkar