Holly Letitia Cunningham (she / her)
This MA collection curates and ‘plays’ with the idea of illusionism somewhere between a physical and digital manner of designing. Using a surrealist aesthetic, I highlight the current ‘shift’ fashion is experiencing towards a more sustainably led, digital design process. Ultimately, the work reflects the feeling of garments glitching in and out of reality, whilst simultaneously inverting it.
As a Scottish designer, I work in a highly conceptual manner to push my practice into both physical and digital spheres. I am Womenswear and silhouette led but also develop textiles from organic line. I explore personal themes of futuristic form or idealistic fantasy through creation of abstract collage and pattern cutting.
To represent influence of digital fashion on the industry today, I morph garments through shifting from a physical ‘convex cutting’ and experiment with digital drape. I use ‘glitching’ to change my physical manifestations in order to create a bold silhouette. To warp the eye further, transparent cotton voile is used for building colour. Exploration of digitally printed textiles on natural fibres is purposeful, alongside recycled fabric for sublimation. Finally, ‘glitch print’ enhances the aesthetic using both symmetry and asymmetry.
As member of ‘The Digital Fashion Group’ and with the support of GSA, throughout my MA collection, I have successfully grown traditional abilities. This has been translated with technical skills into an individual, hybridisation of work.
Lookbook 2022
Phygital Hybridisation
This collection uses the illusionism of digital printing and wrapping of the body. It morphs garments through shifting from physical draping and digital visualisation.
Glitching changes physical manifestations into powerful and unpredictable silhouettes. It plays with juxtaposition and asymmetry, using webbing on lightweight fabrics to pull and twist unexpectedly within the volumes of ‘convex cutting’.
In addition, cotton-bonded gaberdine, recycled poly-voile and layering of cotton voile are used for printed textile imagery. This enhances a strong build up of transparency or colour from black and white to multi-colour throughout the collection. I combine the importance of draping and traditional techniques alongside digital transformation and contemporary fashion research.
I hope to translate a personal feeling of human connection through hugging in order to collage new hybrid images of the body.
Although working with digital drawing, I address the representation of my own creative style and ‘handwriting’ through the question; how can my organic lines be manifested digitally?
I create primary research photography of myself, draping garments around those I have a personal connection with. It highlights a closeness within creative nature, as touch has been such a rarity through the course of the pandemic. Instead these human connections have often been expressed through technology.
