Gerascophobia

The Fear Of Growing Up

The concept for my final major project was to look at the fear people have when it comes to growing up (gerascophobia). I wanted to gain a deeper perspective on how ageing affects people, whether that be physically or mentally and the way we deal with it. Through research and contextual studies I wanted to explore the different ways people express their loss of childhood. I found most of the people I asked were scared of loosing their mobility or becoming ill. I also explored Peter Pan Syndrome and used more light hearted research where I looked at people who refuse to grow up and carry on doing child like things into adult hood. I used this research and developed it into a womanswear collection that takes the silhouettes from doll's dresses and combines them with bedding materials such as quilting.