Change of Form

Fashion, 3D Design, and Experimental Form – My Master's Thesis Process

The purpose of my Master of Arts thesis was to explore the new possibilities that the Marvelous Designer program could offer in fashion collection design and as a creative working environment for a designer.

Developing a personal working method and a distinctive visual expression based on my own values and interests played a central role in the project. As part of the thesis, I designed and created an experimental fashion collection.

I designed the entire collection using a 3D program and produced the finished garments using patterns that had been created and tested within the 3D environment. The collection was highly experimental in terms of pattern cutting.

I wanted to bring sculptural, three-dimensional, yet extremely simple forms into the garments. I achieved this by twisting seams, altering the proportions of pattern pieces, and reducing the number of pattern pieces to a minimum. The details emerged through simplicity and minimalism. Instead of focusing on colors, prints, or materials, the main emphasis was placed on the shape of the garment itself.

At the same time, I wanted to explore how a 3D program could function as a platform for experimental, creative, and artistic work, and what kind of aesthetic language could emerge within a digital 3D environment.

Above all, I wanted to challenge my own limits as a designer within a process defined by new methods and carefully chosen rules. Experimental working methods that combine new technology with artistic expression have always fascinated me.

I also wanted to continue developing an idea I had already begun exploring earlier: using non-traditional pattern cutting as the starting point for fashion design.

Because a large part of my thesis research process focused on developing my own design methodology through a personal design philosophy, I felt it was important to deepen and contextualize my ideas further.

Alongside the concrete rules I had defined for the collection, I also have personal thought patterns that influence my work in the background. I personally see a carefully designed and well-crafted garment as an everyday art object.

I have also always been deeply interested in the possibilities offered by new technology, especially computer programs. I see the computer as a creative tool that can add an entirely new dimension to my process and help me realize ideas that would otherwise be extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming.

For me, the computer became a gateway to innovative and experimental ways of working.

The idea of clothing as art, combined with the computer as part of the creative process, also led me to reflect on aesthetics. I became interested in whether a computer-assisted design process would guide my collection toward a particular visual direction — and if so, what kind of aesthetic language that direction might create, and how it could be evaluated.

The presence of computers in the design process also raised another question for me: could computers someday participate in evaluating the aesthetics of garments already during the design phase?

While reflecting on my own aesthetic values, I became interested in Japanese aesthetics.

The Japanese worldview and aesthetic philosophy differ fundamentally from Western traditions in that aesthetic values are connected to experiencing the surrounding world, space, objects, and lifestyle as a complete whole.

Within Japanese aesthetics, beauty does not simply mean something visually pleasing, but rather something capable of evoking profound emotional experiences. Beauty can also exist in objects that may outwardly appear imperfect or even ugly.

The openness, honesty, and grounded nature of Japanese aesthetics resonated deeply with my own way of thinking. I found many similarities between those ideas and my own design philosophy.

Design principles such as avoiding darts and pleats, minimizing pattern pieces, combining tailoring techniques with non-traditional pattern cutting, emphasizing sculptural forms, simplicity, seamlessness, and the relationship between traditional and new methods all aligned naturally with the values found in Japanese aesthetics.

Visual material played just as important a role in my thesis as written research sources.

The visual background work functioned as a source of inspiration and formed the foundation of the entire collection. I have always found it difficult to work by collecting inspirational images from different sources and building mood boards.

However, I needed extensive visual material to support the beginning of the process. I wanted to discover different forms that could serve as starting points for the collection.

I also felt that the relationship between art and clothing required a personally created artistic foundation — so that art would exist throughout the entire process, rather than merely as a conceptual justification added afterward.

I began producing my own visual material by drawing female figures in motion and in extreme poses. From these figures, I started developing strange, organic shapes and patterns.

I immersed myself deeply in the exploration of form and gradually built a large visual archive that later became the basis for designing the collection in the 3D program.

My visual background work included a sketchbook filled with forms, as well as large-scale A0 drawings. I also created expressionistic and abstract line works using charcoal, black chalk, and liquid ink, which I envisioned using as possible textile prints within the collection.

The aesthetics of charcoal, black chalk, and ink connected naturally in my mind with the values of Japanese aesthetics.

The drawings and paintings eventually became a bound art book that could itself function as a source of inspiration.

Creating my own visual foundation through drawing and painting made the project feel deeply personal and intimate. The more I drew the forms and explored them through different approaches, the more concrete and tangible they became.

Using self-created forms as the basis for pattern cutting and design within the 3D environment made the entire project feel completely my own.

The forms continuously pushed me further into experimentation. With the help of the 3D software, organic shapes twisted and folded into sculptural and highly personal garments.