Like railway tracks, they repeat, run in parallel, and carry weight. At certain points, they diverge and converge, forming an ever-expanding network that connects places once apart.

There are many parts of a garment that we rarely notice on their own. Seams, zippers, rivets. They belong to the structure of the garment rather than its decoration. They are not patterns or ornaments. They simply do their job.

The original purpose of the rivet was equally straightforward. In the nineteenth century, Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis began reinforcing the pockets and other high-stress areas of jeans with copper rivets, allowing the garment to withstand greater strain and last longer. Since then, rivets have remained a means of connection and reinforcement, rarely becoming the focus themselves.

Over time, however, rivets became increasingly visible. They appeared on shoulders, cuffs, leather jackets and boots, gradually developing into a visual language of their own. In some contexts, they grew larger, brighter and sharper, coming to represent strength, rebellion and identity.

While designing this T-shirt, I found myself wondering whether a rivet could exist in another way. I didn't want to hide it, nor did I want to emphasise it. Instead, I tried to think of it simply as a material, no different from cotton, stitching or a button. It has weight. It feels cool to the touch. It catches the light gently. It remains unmistakably metal, yet through its arrangement, it begins to form a different kind of order. What interests me is not the material itself, but how a change in the relationship between materials can create something new.

The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, is one of the closest open star clusters to Earth. Its stars have travelled together for more than one hundred million years, moving through space in the same direction.

The rivets are placed according to the actual positions of the stars. From a distance, they appear as nothing more than small points of reflected light. You may recognise the constellation, or you may not. Knowing what it represents does not change what it is, and not knowing is equally fine. They remain, first and foremost, a handful of rivets—simple objects without any fixed meaning. Before becoming an image, they are first a material.

A zipper relies not on force, but on precise interlocking.

Every tooth has a fixed pitch, angle, and position. Only when they align perfectly can force be transferred and the system function as intended.

It reminds me of gears, mechanical watches, and finely crafted wooden joinery. What makes them work is not strength, but precision.

Zigzag is one of the earliest abstract patterns created by humans. Similar lines can already be found on Neolithic pottery. Over time, they appeared on textiles, architecture, and everyday objects. Across different cultures, the zigzag has been used to depict water, lightning, mountain ridges, or the movement of a snake. A simple line, repeated for thousands of years.

In Chinese, the zigzag takes its name from the character “之” (zhī), whose shape follows the same changing path. In English, the word zigzag mimics both the movement and the shape of the line. Neither language tries to explain it; both simply describe what they see.

The zigzag is built on repetition. A heartbeat rises and falls. A loom moves back and forth. A sewing machine stitches in the same rhythm. We recognise patterns through repetition. There is something quietly reassuring about it.