Manchester School of Art student confronting gender dysphoria with medieval metalwork for Degree Show 2025

Astrid Davis, a final-year student from BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft, takes inspiration from medieval armour, investigating its protective qualities as both a means of concealment and empowerment for the transfeminine body. Astrid’s final project ‘Empower The Dolls’, which will be exhibited at the 2025 Degree Show, functions as a mechanism for overcoming these struggles, enabling the wearer to express their own identity. Each piece is hand-forged from mild steel and copper. Created using traditional blacksmithing techniques, the work is keeping alive a dying craft while shedding a light on contemporary issues.

Talking on the techniques behind the practice, Astrid said: “Traditionally, you would have had someone making the coils, some making links, then someone linking those sheets together and then that would all get handed off to the master mail maker who would then cut those sheets up and almost sew them into the garment. However, a modern mail maker now has to do everything because there’s no apprentices and its not profitable. As a result, its kind of a dying craft”. 

Although the art is dying out, crafts like these still carry a great importance, culturally, historically and practically, as unique works can be created using these processes. Speaking on the importance of keeping the craft alive, Astrid said: “I’m trying to bring back and celebrate what the art can become and show that blacksmithing and armour making isn’t just this medieval warfare craft it to can be elevated into something new and fashion-based. I’d done a lot of history and classical studies before coming to Manchester School of Art so I was interested in armour and but never made anything. It was through the different university units that I was able to do a kind of a exploration into different things that then led me onto armour and that concept of that protection element”. 

However, Astrid’s work isn’t simply about keeping alive a dying craft, it is also about exploring themes of protection in modern society and subverting our ideas of how physical armour can protect us. Astrid explained: “The project initially started off with looking about how you can suit up and protect yourself from the sort of oncoming attacks emotionally from society. If you’re going into the office and you put on a suit, you’re almost putting on your armour for the day. Then, the idea developed into looking at our relationship with our bodies, particularly transfeminine people, and looking at how you can physically cover up to conceal your insecurities and vulnerabilities. I want to create more of a conversation around the issue and bring to light the personal everyday struggles of people with gender dysmorphia. It was important for me to explore things on a personal level to contrast what’s happening in the media currently with these huge sweeping statements and generalisations about groups of people”. 
 

Modern mail making is indeed a very personal process as it requires long amounts of time spent working alone and using techniques that are very physical and hands on. However, Astrid explained that collaboration was also very important: “It was very personal because I was the one putting all my mental and physical energy into the work but I also think the collaboration I did was very interesting. I’ve worked with two drag queens who I built the work around there. I did a questionnaire asking about their personal insecurities and vulnerabilities and then this informed the project. This brought new viewpoints to the project as, although they had very similar experiences to me of gender dysmorphia, they had their own personal insecurities that I may not have thought of. For example, one person felt that the belly button was an area of insecurity for them and this wasn’t something I’d ever had a massive battle with myself as a trans person. Using these personal stories was important to make the work representative”.

This collaboration culminated in a photoshoot to showcase the final work. Astrid explained the process: “We first did an initial fitting with them just to make sure that everything lined up. Then we worked with them on the styling and talked about what clothes or makeup they wanted to wear and how they wanted to express themselves. The driving force behind both mine and their collaborations in the photoshoot the idea that  this is a way for you to show who you are through the photo shoot rather than trying to put on a show, its about being yourself. That was done through the styling and creating a comfortable environment to work in and I think we were all really happy with the results”.

Be sure to see Astrid’s work at the 2025 Degree Show opening with the private view on June 6th. 

Find out more about Astrid’s work here.