Dezeen Magazine

Red and purple garment on a mannequin

University of Arts Linz spotlights 10 fashion and technology student projects

Dezeen School Shows: a clothing collection informed by patterns of brain activity while dreaming and a research project studying bacteria that produces whole cellulose garments are included in Dezeen's latest school show by students at the University of Arts Linz.

Also included is a collection of bacteria-dyed textiles that eliminates the need for harmful chemicals and a project that scans a historical dress and uses computer software to observe its changing integrity.


University of Arts Linz

School: University of Arts Linz
Course:  BA (Hons) Fashion and Technology and MA Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier and Christiane Luible-Bär

School statement:

"Fashion and Technology is a bachelor's and master's programme for forward-thinking fashion design at the University of Arts Linz, blending the interfaces of the digital and the analogue while intertwining traditional and emerging technologies.

"It is aimed at designers who want to explore a sustainable, diverse and inclusive future of fashion.

"Students develop new fabrics, such as biomaterials or e-textiles, use additive manufacturing or robotics and combine them with traditional techniques, such as weaving, knitting and draping.

"International experts support the students in practice-oriented workshops in design, styling, photography, material innovation, fashion studies, digital technologies and presentation strategies."

Find out more about the Fashion and Technology courses at the University of Linz on Dezeen Courses.


Embodiment by Elena Alexander

Embodiment by Elena Alexander

"Clothing can act like a cast, suppressing the body whilst building up some kind of armour, a distinction between the outer world and the inside.

"The suppression of the body finds its equivalent in the corset, with its multifaceted history. Techniques of making a corset are ripped from their purpose and lead from a restriction into an explosion.

"The process forms a new body shell – a shell of anonymity, androgyny and armour."

The images are by Anna Breit.

Student: Elena Alexander
Course: BA (Hons) Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär and Jeung-Guy Song
Email: elena.alexander[at]kunstuni-linz.at


Poetic Humorous Anti-Norm Bodies by Nina Kugler

Poetic Humorous Anti-Norm Bodies by Nina Kugler

"Why are our bodies standardised when in fact they are so beautifully individual?

"This project deals with meanings of standardised bodies. It questions where to find the opposites of norm bodies and searches for new body possibilities within our society.

"Through an interplay of technologies, digital bodies become new analogue body possibilities."

The images are by Anna Breit.

Student: Nina Kugler
Course: BA Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär and Jeung-Guy Song
Email: nina.kugler[at]kunstuni-linz.at


Infiltrate by Nazila Shamsizadeh

Infiltrate by Nazila Shamsizadeh

"In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, it says, "to them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images".

"By creating biomaterials and 3D simulations, the transition between 2D, 3D and 4D spaces can be explored.

"The materials and their virtual simulation react to the surrounding conditions and demonstrate that the way we look at things plays a big role in their definition."

The first and second images are by Anna Breit.

Student: Nazila Shamsizadeh
Course: BA (Hons) Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär and Jeung-Guy Song
Email: nazila.shamsizadeh[at]kunstuni-linz.at


KitschCampCraft by Johanna Rappersberger

KitschCampCraft by Johanna Rappersberger

"Textile habits are undermined. Visual patterns are disrupted. Conventional garments are infiltrated.

"KitschCampCraft explores new ways of dressing, seeing and crafting."

The images are by Anna Breit.

Student: Johanna Rappersberger
Course: BA (Hons) Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär and Jeung-Guy Song
Email: johanna.rappersberger[at]kunstuni-linz.at


Yearning For Colour by Julia Moser

Yearning For Colour by Julia Moser

"This project involves dyeing textiles with pigment-producing bacteria sourced in nature instead of colouring lakes and rivers through often harmful textile dyeing processes.

"It shows the potential of bacteria for dyeing textiles as a solution for fulfilling the human desire for colour, while at the same time treating the environment in a respectful and sustainable way. For this dyeing method, almost no water is needed and no harmful chemicals are added.

"In a constant interplay between designer and bacteria, and thus also between control and chance, living pigment bacteria are invited to support the fashion design process itself."

Student: Julia Moser
Course: MA (Hons) Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier and Christiane Luible-Bär
Email: julia.moser[at]kunstuni-linz.at


Dreaming in Technicolour by Lisa-Montana Fritzsch

Dreaming in Technicolour by Lisa-Montana Fritzsch

"Our brain is our software, our elixir of life and our desire for adventure. Neuron fireworks ignite every night, giving rise to the most inexplicable, colourful patterns in our dreams.

"Collecting narratives of dreams and translating them through machine learning results in gleaming trousers with hazy print layering, quilted puffy jackets and technicolour blankets."

The images are by Anna Breit.

Student: Lisa-Montana Fritzsch
Course: BA (Hons) Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär and Jeung-Guy Song
Email: lisa-montana.fritzsch[at]kunstuni-linz.at


The Essence by Tania Pérez Hernández

The Essence by Tania Pérez Hernández

"Not only are we made of fundamental particles, we also produce them and are constantly bombarded by them.

"In the daily encounter with other people or living beings, organic particles collide and collapse. The Essence recreates this situation in a digital world full of imagination, expanding the borders of the human body into wearable, molecular clouds."

Student: Tania Pérez Hernández
Course: MA Fashion and Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär and Jeung-Guy Song
Email: tania.perez-hernandez[at]kunstuni-linz.at


Grow Whole Garments by FAR – Fashion and Robotics

Grow Whole Garments by FAR – Fashion and Robotics

"The world of fashion is currently undergoing a fundamental change. Attention is finally drawn to fast fashion's negative environmental and social impacts, and new technologies promise to change the fashion industry radically.

"Grow Whole Garments is an artistic research project by a student group called Fashion and Robotics. It shows a process of seamlessly growing whole bacterial cellulose garments in textile membranes.

"Fabric-producing bacteria offer a potential alternative to the cultivation of cotton, which has undesirable effects from an environmental perspective."

The images are by Jürgen Grünwald.

Student: FAR – Fashion and Robotics
Course: Fashion & Technology
Tutors: Christiane Luible-Bär, Johannes Braumann and Werner Baumgartner
Email: fashion[at]kunstuni-linz.at


Braided Textiles by Katharina Halusa

Braided Textiles by Katharina Halusa

"Braided Textiles explores textile braiding as an alternative production technique for accessories and apparel.

"An innovative manufacturing process on the radial braiding machine re-modernises the braiding craft with a robotic and machine-assisted process.

"The aim of Braided Textiles is to use this process to generate a new type of three-dimensional textile for application in fashion and sustainably open up new aesthetic, physiological and functional perspectives in fashion."

Student: Katharina Halusa
Course: MA Fashion & Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär and Karin Krapfenbauer
Email: katharina.halusa[at]kunstuni-linz.at


Chaos Theory by Barbora Rašková

Chaos Theory by Barbora Rašková

"The existence of everything in the world is a direct consequence of an infinite chain of causes and results.

"This project observes the changing integrity and attributes of a historical dress. By scanning the dress in different environments, computer software and the human mind create various images and designs of one and the same origin."

Student: Barbora Rašková
Course: BA (Hons) Fashion & Technology
Tutors: Ute Ploier, Christiane Luible-Bär, Sander Hofstee and Jeung-Guy Song
Email: barbora.raskova[at]kunstuni-linz.at

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and the University of Arts Linz. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.