Caffeine Addiction
Category: Apparel
Competitions: Taiwan Region
《Caffeine Addiction》integrates two core inspirations: the psychological dependency on caffeine in daily life and visual language of coffee staining and diffusion. Caffeine is not only a stimulant beverage, but also a subtle force that gradually infiltrates everyday rhythms, creating a fluctuating state between alertness and fatigue. This continuous cycle of dependence becomes the conceptual foundation of the collection. Visually, the work is inspired by the natural spreading of coffee as it drips, seeps, and stains surfaces, forming unpredictable gradients and organic textures. These diffusion patterns reflect both material behavior and emotional instability, echoing how caffeine affects the body and mind through cycles of concentration, exhaustion, and renewed reliance. In terms of technique, traditional lacquer fan dyeing and cloud dyeing methods are reinterpreted using coffee grounds as a natural dye medium. The use of coffee residue not only strengthens the conceptual connection to caffeine, but also introduces an eco-material approach that emphasizes reuse and material memory. Applied onto leather, the dye creates layered, fluid textures that resemble coffee absorption and sedimentation. This is further combined with my expertise in knitting, where soft knitted structures interact with dyed leather to build contrast, depth, and multi-layered composition. By merging psychological dependency with coffee-ground cloud dyeing and visual diffusion, the collection transforms the abstract condition of addition into a tangible fashion expression, where material, process, and emotion are inseparably intertwined.
