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Pixel Play

Fashion Project (2013)

A fashion studio project exploring what happens when you introduce glitches into patternmaking.

I started by thinking about pattern pieces as pixels, discrete units that could be manipulated, shifted, broken. Introducing deliberate glitches into the drafting process produced unexpected forms: silhouettes that couldn't have been designed conventionally, because they came from a kind of structured error.

The collection was then presented as a Flash game (dated now, but at the time it felt exactly right). Inspired by Cher's closet in Clueless, you could drag garments onto my friend and model Helen, change colours, spin her around. Every combination was an actual photograph of her in the outfit, so it felt naturalistic rather than illustrated. One of the first projects where I really started playing with computers as a design tool.

Interactive: play it in your browser via Ruffle (open-source Flash emulator). Heads up: this game plays sound.

Photography by Sebastian Petrovski. Model Helen Slattery. Hair and makeup Jordan Hallewell.