Tyla Stevenson

MA Student in Media Studies

Digital Fashion: Reconstructing Fashion’s Relationship with Materiality & Time

Supervisors: Heli Salomaa & Dr Michael Daubs

ABSTRACT

2020 is the contextual anchor for my research as the Covid-19 pandemic is an event that has highlighted the potential for digital innovation within the fashion industry. Digital fashion is a virtual rendering of a garment or accessory that can be used in a variety of ways. For example, digital fashion can be used as a design and production technique for making clothing, an aesthetic used to promote a brands physical clothing, or it can be a digital product that is designed and sold only in a digital space. The central aim of my research is to investigate fashion as a concept and interpret its relationship with materiality and time, in a moment that is shifting the fashion commodity in a digital direction. My research question asks, does the move to digital representations of fashion design and production shift fashion’s conceptual relationship with materiality and time?

BIOGRAPHY

Tyla Stevenson majored in fashion design at Massey University, graduating with a first-class honour's degree. She is now completing her master's by thesis, majoring in media studies, to further pursue her academic interests in the mediatised fashion image and critical fashion theory. When she is not studying, she's working as a university library assistant, guest lecturing on the fashion design technology courses, or playing in her hardcore punk band.