Tsidjesi-Sika Boucher

Résumé

Born and raised in Togo, West Africa, I am half French, half Ghanian. As a kid I was constantly looking for a place to be myself because I had always the nagging shapeless feeling that I was never in the right place. Except in my mum's arms. Out of her arms I become stateless. At hypersonic speed my story is becoming the story of an entire generation: globalisation, free movement, migration's refugees, social media.The multicultural background which can be seen as a personal richness is also a global problem because the stateless feeling is of lack, of loss and of incompleteness. What is my identity when in my origin countries people constantly remind me of my differences ? How must it feel to have your feet planted deep down in the ground? Compared to those who have their feet rooted deeply, for generation after generation, I feel like a tree with floating roots, a hydroponic plant.If clothing brings me a part of this something, a part of whatever I feel I am missing, it might be the same for other hydroponic's youth too? If clothing is our identity territory, are we not, hydroponic kids giving to fashion the apex of its power? So does today's fashion bring us good or does it inevitably make our situation worse? Has the fashion industry an interest and a responsibility to reevaluate the hydroponics, the main future customer, and do what states (communities, tribes, villages) can not do anymore? Give us a true sense of belonging, a sense of completeness; a response to our particular and modern needs? If yes, then how? How when other urgent criteria such as sustainability come into play? Is it the same fight? Is it viable for the industry to balance these interests and responsibilities, and to remain profitable? Do we have to rethink design and marketing among others?