DREAMING ELI SS25
Mother of Pearl, Daughter of Flesh
Images By: Fae Reid
Words Courtesy of Dreaming Eli // IPR London
“Mother of Pearl, Daughter of Flesh is my ode to myself. To my body, to my soul.
With each sketch, each draping and each intricate embroidery I’ve explored and written a story of self love. It’s rough and crude, dark and brutal, but also so unbelievably beautiful. A beauty that strikes to the soul, like the mother of pearl inside an oyster. A protective layer: that’s how pearls are born.
With “Mother of Pearl, Daughter of Flesh” I found myself. Layer after layer after layer.
I felt myself. I touched my core and stroke the intricacy of my veins.
It’s me in me.
I feel it deeply.
The love, the joy, the sex, the cuts on my soul.
I feel it deeply.
The surprise of a heart that beats faster and faster.
I feel it deeply,
THE LOVE FOR MYSELF.
I HUG MY BEAUTY TIGHT.
ALWAYS FIERCE. ALWAYS BOLD. ALWAYS POWERFUL.
I feel it deeply.
With my flesh, and the veins under my skin.
With my core, and the tightening of my hip.
With my tongue, and the taste of my own blood. Of life. Of salt.
I feel it deeply.
Till feelings is all I feel”
-Elisa Trombatore, Dreaming Eli
For Spring Summer 25 Dreaming Eli returns to Sicily to delve into the rich mythology steeped in her native enchanted island, drawing inspiration from the Greek myth of Scylla and Charybdis, two monsters that inhabited opposite sides of the Strait of Messina, the channel of water separating Italy from Sicily.
The collection gets its inspiration particularly from the figures of Scylla, described in the Odyssey Homer as a supernatural female creature, with 12 feet and 6 heads on long snaky necks, each head having a triple row of sharklike teeth, while her loins were girdled by the heads of baying dogs. From her lair in a cave, she would devour whatever ventured within reach, including six of Odysseus’s companions.
