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Saturday 17 September 2011

Nicola Morgan - Graduate Showcase


Photography by Lucas Seidenfaden

“I wanted technology to revaluate how we construct clothes,” Nicola Morgan tells me while peering out from under her blunt fringe. The fresh faced designer stands alongside three examples from her collection, two black, one red, but all three, full-length evening gowns. This RCA graduate explores the possible interactions and overlaps between technology and fashion while looking to construction for detail. In the graduate showcase three such examples of Nicola’s combining of these juxtaposing forces can be witnessed. Fabric drapes into elegant folds and twists into sweeping drapes. The molded metalwork creates an industrial and almost skeletal framework for the fabric to hang from. In some places smooth and others track like, these metal additions wrap around the neck and back of the garment, manipulating the structure and shape of the pieces.

Glancing over the jersey fabric and framework as we walked around the pieces she began to explain her methodology and inspiration. “ I wanted them to have a jewellery like quality,” and these metal structures with enamel finish certainly do. In fact, they have an almost seductive quality, as the structures in one piece break free from the fabric and wind around the neck like a choker.  Entwined in her technical jewellery. She explains that each solid structure is carefully held in place by tiny pins that give a smooth and invisible finish. To create them Nicola formed every piece digitally, creating the whole collection though virtual media.  “It was so exciting when I finally got to touch them,” working digitally only enhanced the tactile encounter for her when it came. The real art of these pieces lies in the tension created between the soft fabric and rigid constructions.


Text: Samantha Farr