Fabric manipulations

experimenting with natural textures

Exploring LATEX

Jeanette Pham continues to push the boundaries of materiality and transformation in her current explorations, returning to the experimental spirit that defined her Chrysalis project. She is deeply engaged in studying the behavior of latex, investigating how it stretches, peels, and responds to movement and gravity. Each experiment becomes a conversation with the material itself, revealing its fragility, elasticity, and capacity for metamorphosis.

In Chrysalis, latex was treated almost as a second skin, peeling away from leather to expose hidden layers, creating garments that mirrored the body’s own processes of shedding and renewal. Now, she is pushing that dialogue further, observing how latex reacts to heat, tension, and layering, and discovering new ways to manipulate it into forms that fold, ripple, and fall unpredictably. The goal is not only to explore aesthetic possibilities but also to embody transformation, capturing the tension between vulnerability and strength in a tangible, sculptural way.

Her work with latex is deeply tactile. She stretches, molds, and layers the material, allowing it to respond organically rather than forcing it into fixed shapes. This method echoes her philosophy of impermanence and evolution: each piece exists in a state of flux, never entirely complete, always moving toward something new. By embracing the unexpected behaviors of latex, she turns the material into a collaborator, a living participant in the creation process.

Aging Surface

The latex naturally darkens and oxidizes, exposing the layers and textures developed through time.
Experiments with self-made latex

I played with latex and milk, exploring how it could cling, fold, and resist. Surfaces detached, thickened, and bloomed, sticky and alive. Each experiment became a second skin, a sculpture in motion a material that transforms as it moves, echoing the metamorphosis at the heart of Chrysalis.
Imprinted Forms

These latex pieces capture and transform surfaces from the world around them. By imprinting textures from diverse objects, each piece acquires unique folds, ridges, and dimensional patterns, creating new sculptural and tactile experiences.
Water-Bound

Latex can only be colored with water-based pigments
Second Skin

These newly produced latex pieces function as a recreated second skin
Powdered Process

Latex can only be handled when a fine powder prevents it from sticking. The liquid mass is applied over a surface, allowing it to take shape, capture textures, and dry without adhering uncontrollably.

Exploring SCOBY LEATHER

Experimenting with kombucha cultures, known as scoby, to create her own kind of leather. In her studio she grows the material in large jars of tea and sugar, where a thin layer slowly forms on the surface. Over time it becomes thicker and stronger, eventually drying into a flexible, skin-like sheet.

For her, the process is more than a technical experiment. It is about observing how something living transforms and shapes itself. Each scoby grows differently, with its own texture and small irregularities that make every piece unique. Jeanette uses these natural forms as ornaments in her garments, placing them where they can catch the light or change the surface of the fabric.

Through these experiments she is searching for a connection between growth and design, between nature and fashion. Her work suggests that materials don’t always have to be made sometimes they can simply grow.

Where new layers appear

New layers always form at the surface where the liquid meets the air. Even if pieces float around, the main growth happens only on the top
Homemade Kombucha/ SCOBY

I created my own SCOBY. SCOBY stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, by fermenting tea with sugar and a starter culture. The name “mushroom” comes from its appearance: it forms a thick, rubbery, pancake like layer on top of the liquid, resembling a fungus. Within one to two weeks, the first thin layer appeared, developing into a stable, jelly-like mat after three to four weeks. As it grows, the tea transforms into a naturally fizzy, tangy kombucha. it’s a small experiment in fermentation.
Kombucha- Fermentation & new layers

During fermentation, the SCOBY forms thin new layers on the surface of the liquid. Over time these layers thicken and stack, creating a fresh SCOBY on top of the old one.
Growth in a bigger container

When placed in a larger container, the SCOBY grows wider because it follows the size of the surface. The bigger the diameter, the larger the new SCOBY disk becomes.
Experimenting

Even small changes can shift its texture, color, or growth pattern, showing how sensitive the culture is.
Reaction to objects, glitter, or cinnamon

When you place things on the SCOBY or add glitter or cinnamon, it often grows over them. The SCOBY tries to seal the surface, so it simply covers whatever you addedglitter gets trapped, and cinnamon gets fully overgrown.
RESULTS

Overgrown, cinnamon, flowers, fabric stripes and glitter >