Voice of Silence

IED Madrid - Student: Diego Serrato Varón

Academic year

2025-2026

Voice of Silence transforms family memory into a tribute to migrant women, celebrating care, resilience and vulnerability as expressions of strength.

Voice of Silence is rooted in a mother's migration story, becoming a tribute to all the women who support their families through care, sacrifice and quiet resilience. Drawing on an intimate archive of family photographs, the project transforms personal memory into a collective narrative about migration, displacement and endurance. 

The collection moves away from idealised representations of motherhood, presenting it instead as a space shaped by contradiction, vulnerability and love. References such as Louise Bourgeois, Ocean Vuong, Sally Mann and Alexander McQueen are brought into dialogue with the lived experiences of the designer's own mother, creating a visual language in which tailoring, deconstruction and aged garments become metaphors for protection, memory and survival. 

Each silhouette originates from a gesture, a photograph or a memory. Wind-distorted coats, exposed seams, protective volumes and reconstructed fabrics reinterpret everyday scenes, transforming them into new ways of inhabiting the body. Rather than recreating the past, the project distils its emotional essence into garments conceived as contemporary shields against uncertainty and displacement. 

Voice of Silence is a letter of gratitude. A project that transforms design into an act of remembrance and restoration, celebrating the quiet strength of those who turned care into a form of resistance and vulnerability into their greatest armour. 

Diego Serrato Varón is a student on the Bachelor's Degree in Fashion Design.