SUFFERING HAPPINESS - RUNWAY
Suffering Happiness, a six-look collection designed, constructed, and produced by Zach Lenett, serves as an homage to his father, Harvey Lenett. The collection reflects his ongoing navigation of grief and the shifting mental states that accompany it. Suffering Happiness confronts the unsettling emotions of loss—feelings rarely spoken about, despite being a universal human experience. Through this work, Lenett seeks to open conversations around fashion design as a medium for emotional expression, resilience, and remembrance.To “suffer happiness” is a juxtaposed thought, and when unraveled, it speaks to the shifting measures of grief. Grief is not a separate chapter from life, and death is arguably the only experience all humans share; its constant circulation within daily existence creates an emotional state that is at once heavy and alive. Lenett channels this tension through shattered ceramic plates, an image of attempting to reassemble what is broken, only to encounter confusion and struggle (Look 06).
This dialogue continues across sharp (Look 02) and soft (Look 01) silhouettes: the sharp edges echoing the jagged, uncontainable pain of loss, while the softness embodies fragility, tenderness, and the fleeting comfort that grief occasionally allows. In Look 04, a straitjacket constrains model Milan, a visual metaphor for how grief can suffocate and immobilize. Look 05 builds an armor-like wall of protection, but one that is slowly breaking down — a reminder that barriers can offer safety but cannot hold indefinitely against grief’s persistence.
Together, these pieces trace the paradox at the heart of Suffering Happiness: the coexistence of pain and resilience, fragility and strength, confinement and release.
FINAL WALK
LOOK 01 - Leo wearing all linen
LOOK 02 - Germaen wearing a cotton gauze upper and a woolen lower
LOOK 03 - James wearing all denim.
LOOK 04 - Milan wearing a functional canvas straightjacket and a patchwork denim skirt.
LOOK 05 - Alameer wearing a cotton upper and a woolen lower.
LOOK 06 - Isa wearing a shattered ceramic plate top sewn together with leather strips, and a seeded natural canvas lower.
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