“Memento Mori” was constructed entirely by silkworms. I raised more than 400 Bombyx mori (the caterpillar of the silkworm moth) for the sole purpose of having them create this dress. The process began when the silkworms hatched from their eggs and began to eat the pounds and pounds of mulberry leaves I gathered for them. After four weeks, they were ready to spin. By nature, they weave beautiful figure-eight patterns to form a cocoon. To do so, they need to attach their silk to two different planes, such as the corner of a box or the angle of a branch and a twig. To make the dress, I simply removed one plane, requiring them to spin on flat surfaces—platforms cut to the size and shape of the dress pattern pieces. Because they couldn’t create a cocoon, they wove their silk into flat panels of fabric. Once they had woven the individual pieces of the dress, other silkworms were choreographed into stitching them together—think Cinderella and the birds making her gown. No scissors, no thread, no needle: just silkworms, and a bit of guidance from the artist.