At first glance it’s a ripped paint-splattered T-shirt, with a jacket draped around it. But on closer inspection, fashion student Jade Anderson’s design is a striking reflection of her own traumatic experiences.

When she was four, Jade was in a house fire, and aged 11 she was seriously injured after being in collision with a car.

“I had a cracked pelvis and couldn’t walk. I was off school for four months. I have a permanent scar on my eye and a bump on my leg. Going through that, and the fire, made me appreciate life instead of taking it for granted,” says the 20-year-old. “This T-shirt symbolises survival; I’ve burned marks into it and stained it with paint, which is meant to be blood.” The jacket is decorated with medals Jade bought at a flea market. “They represent the honour of people who help survivors, the emergency services who work in traumatic incidents. It’s a tailored, formal jacket – it represents strength, protection.”

Jade’s design was inspired by an exhibition at Bradford’s Impressions Gallery exploring the role clothing plays in two rites of passage. Clothes For Living And Dying features photographs of teenage girls dressed for school graduation, and of old women preparing clothes they wish to be buried in after death.

The photographs were taken by Margareta Kern, who grew up in Banja Luka and came to Britain aged 17 in 1992 during the conflict in former Yugoslavia. Later returning to Bosnia, Margareta discovered the ritual of death clothes; her Clothes For Death photographs are of weather-beaten old women sitting in their homes with items of clothing they’ve chosen for burial. In contrast, Graduation Dresses features girls posing in replicas of glamorous dresses worn by stars like Jennifer Lopez and Keira Knightley. What connects the old and young women is that their identities have been shaped by turbulent historical, political and cultural currents.

Jade is one of a group of students on Bradford College’s fashion degree course who have created imaginative designs inspired by the life and death themes of Margareta’s exhibition. Their striking designs went on display at Impressions in a collection called To Die For.

“I looked at my own experiences, and at tragedies like September 11, the July 7 bombings and the Tsunami,” says Jade. “None of us know what clothes we’re going to die in. Margareta’s photographs are powerful because they show the significance of clothes throughout our lives.”

Natalie Crabbe based her design around tattoo art. “People get tattoos to mark occasions and rites of passage,” she says. “I used tattoo designs, including memorial tattoos which people get to remember loved ones. We know we’ll die in our skin, just as we were born in it. I love the Clothes For Death pictures; I’m fascinated by the organisation those women put into it, sometimes years before their death.”

A stark striped jacket designed by James Line reflects the uniform worn by prisoners in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Different coloured triangles stitched on to the back of the coat represent categories of prisoners, and a yellow Star of David is sewn onto the front. Cloth figures pinned to the coat symbolise the struggle of Holocaust victims. “It reflects the horrors of war, but not in a military way,” says James.

Jade Hannam drew inspiration from both 1920s underwear and her 84-year-old grandmother for her design! “I looked at skin and how it ages,” she says. “I took photographs of my Nana and studied the skin on her face and hands.” Jade’s striking outfit features handprints taken from her photographic images, and the fabric is occasionally scrunched like wrinkly skin. “You don’t choose your skin, but you can choose your clothes,” says Jade.

Nicole Strachan’s design comprised three pairs of gloves, reflecting different stages of life. “What struck me about Margareta’s exhibition was the death clothes the elderly ladies kept in a box. It reminded me of a bride storing her wedding dress away,” she says. “Initially I was going for a wedding dress, but I thought gloves would represent the beginning and end of the life cycle. Gloves are traditionally given to babies and also worn at weddings and funerals. I used an example of each.”

Hafsah Faquir based her design on the Muslim wedding ceremony, using the colours red, green and gold to represent various stages. “It shows how significant clothing is over the five days of the wedding period,” says Hafash. “I used a photograph of my sister on her wedding day, dressed in traditional wedding colours of red and gold, and one of her wearing green and yellow the night before. On her engagement she wore blue and on the second day of her wedding she was in turquoise. I was interested in how we collect things over the five days; clothes, money, henna, jewellery and gifts.”

Another design called Happy Life, made of newspaper print fabric and flowers, explores the notion of life and death in the Army, while The Lottery, featuring a necklace made of lottery balls, reflects the role of money in life. Mexico’s Day Of The Dead, celebrating the lives of deceased loved ones, is the inspiration for a design with fabric skulls stitched on to a jacket, and another design features a leather jacket belonging to a late grandfather, draped over a dress featuring a scrapbook-style print of photographs of friends and family. The inner workings of the body form the base for another design, with ‘veins’ stitched on to a skin-coloured jacket, and another is inspired by films The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Delhi 6 exploring themes of ageing. Margareta, who spent a day working with the students, was “very impressed” with their work. “They have truly extended the ideas behind my exhibition into three-dimensional, wearable pieces of art. They haven’t shied away from the challenging and emotional subjects and, through their designs, showed that clothing can serve as a canvas for expressing and exploring a multitude of themes, emotions and experiences,” she says. “Their sketchbooks showed that they went through an extensive process of research and hard work to arrive at the final pieces of design. I thoroughly enjoyed spending a day with the students and was pleased to see our works in dialogue at the Impressions Gallery.”

  • Clothes For Living And Dying runs at the Impressions Gallery, Centenary Square, Bradford, until June 14. For more information ring 08450 515882, e-mail enquiries@impressions-gallery.com or visit impressions-gallery.com