“Digital fashion” is a new, growing field in the field of fashion design, now becoming abruptly relevant due to its non-physical essence. “Digital fashion” is a processual tool to assist design but also a new fashion space, culture, and community. The term refers to a practice that produces three-dimensional virtual clothing as prototypes/sample simulations for possible physical garments, datafied digital representations, OR end-products in themselves, worn only in virtual spaces where dressed avatars are fluidly enmeshed with our physical bodies and identities. “Digital fashion” converges fashion and gaming but also redefines the professional role of a fashion designer. The designer becomes a digital artisan, using the embodied technical fashion knowledge, yet, suddenly regaining the artistic independence with endless possibilities to test in 3D-form. Two ethnographically investigated case studies on “digital fashion” pioneers, Atacac and The Fabricant, will be presented.

Natalia Särmäkari>>