JD Design Awards 2025 scaled

Discordant Harmony: Finding Beauty in Contrast

Beverly Cylvia Almeida - B.Sc. in Fashion and Apparel Design 2022

Beverly Cylvia Almeida’s Discordant Harmony is a provocative Spring/Summer collection of womenswear that defies convention through the prism of Wabi-Sabi—a Japanese ideology that celebrates imperfection, transience, and asymmetry. Derived from the multi-textured, weathered surfaces of tree bark, the collection is an allegory for individuality, contradictions, and understated resilience.

Created for Gen-Z women—particularly young creatives and influencers between the ages of 18–25—this collection provides something beyond fashion: it provides understanding. Each garment is reversible, symbolizing two sides of identity. One side is clean-lined and easy-to-wear, designed for everyday wear. On the reverse is bold, clashing embroidery that reflects bark’s natural randomness and the secret depth in each human being.

Texturally, the range combines cotton-polyester blends for softness and breathability with cotton drill for durability and structure. Natural base colours—dark brown, black, olive green, beige, and cream—ground the clothing in nature, while embroidery bursts in rust orange, plum, mustard yellow, dusty blue, and soft pink, adding an intentional asymmetry that makes each look boldly distinctive.

Discordant Harmony Finding Beauty in Contrast

Discordant Harmony speaks so eloquently to the JDDA 2025 theme of “Pause”—inviting wearers to pause, consider, and embrace contradiction. Like bark that grows over time, with scars and change, this line reminds us that beauty is not perfection. It’s in the contrasts—the stillness and the chaos, the strong and the soft—that harmony is found.

front view brazilian woman working as clothing designer

Lanchana Nanda pulled off a sneaky genius: she made the old-school Malnad comfort totally blend with current-day design smarts. Nothing clashes. Nothing feels forced. You get this spot that makes you think “hmm, am I in a boutique retreat or someone’s ancestral home?”