A few years ago, I watched the Barbie movie dressed in bright pink with my friends, buzzing with nostalgia and anticipation. I felt a lot that night. Recognition, confusion, discomfort, delight. My friends felt it too. We talked for hours after, trying to understand why certain parts rang so true while others felt distant.
We realized something simple but important: feminism is universal, but its meaning is deeply personal.
It changes with culture, with environment, with age, with what hurts you and what frees you. There’s no perfect version of it, no final form, no “right feminist.” We all just keep learning and trying.
From that conversation came a question:
If I could build a home, a world designed entirely around my needs and my nature, what would it look like?
What would it feel like to be the default?
CONTEXT
The first rule you learn with CDs is: don’t touch the disc.
It’s fragile. You’ll ruin it. You’ll break something.
A cactus is taught with the narrative of pain first.
It’ll prick you, make you bleed. Don’t touch it. Don’t be stupid. Don’t come too close.
What if your mirror showed you not just how you look —
but how you move, how you brighten, how you dance, how you wiggle?
The idea of a “dollhouse” to me was not a place to decorate, but a place to build to your real needs, piece by piece.
A reimagined home where rules are rewritten, objects are kinder, fear is met with softness, curiosity is rewarded, your body is mirrored with love, your presence shapes the environment.
A dollhouse for play, but more for possibility and not just escapism but a blueprint.
A world designed for you, not one you constantly adapt yourself to fit.
But what if this disc only worked when you touched it? What if the “wrong” gesture — tapping, pressing hard— unlocked the right answer?
A world where hesitation becomes exploration. A world where fear of breaking becomes permission to try.
But what if each thorn did something different — some tickled, some are just soft and squishy or squeaky, some misted water into the air?
A world where scary things approach you gently. Where you’re allowed curiosity without punishment.
A mirror that reflects not critique but admiration. A mirror you actually listen to.
A world where your body becomes a companion, not an adversary.
A mirror that reflects not critique but admiration. A mirror you actually listen to.
A world where your body becomes a companion, not an adversary.
I didn’t want to design fantasy. I wanted to reimagine the rules of the everyday.
With emerging technologies like AI shifting everything we know, design feels less like making objects and more like unlearning assumptions. Rethinking the rules, and rethinking ourselves inside them.
So I ran a small exercise: What if the objects we grew up with — and the rules that governed them — behaved differently?
What would that change about us?
I’m a ____ girl, in a _____ world-uh-uh
The Disc You’re Allowed to Touch
The Cactus That Doesn’t Hurt You
The mirror that loves you back
The Dollhouse
