Portfolio Laura Slings 2023

PORTFOLIO

LAURA SLINGS

I excel in making my creative ideas come to life in a precise and innovative way. People around me describe me as a hard working, disciplined and motivated person. The goal in my work is to dress people with a piece of art and tell my personal stories through it. Whether this is in my physical or digital work.

Dutch is my native language and my English is on a professional level.

I work in a very organized and structured way. I work well in a team but I am also independent and entrepreneurial. My main focus is on creating digital fashion, but I also love handsewing and the wonderful art of embroidery.

The main courses I followed at AMFI are: fashion design, pattern drawing, fashion illustration, technical drawing, material, draping, craft techniques, sewing techniques, fashion history, fashion sustainability and print.

LAURA SLINGS CURRICULUM VITAE

Bachelor in Fashion Design and Textile Technology with a specialisation in Hypercraft (digital fashion), a minor in XR Design (virtual- and augmented reality) and exchange to EWHA Womans University in Seoul, South Korea as an extra semester - Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI) , The Netherlands. From September 2019 until January 2023.

Internship at Viktor & Rolf being Haute Couture Atelier Design Assistant, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Collection F/W 2022: The New Royals From March 2021 until July 2021.

Fashion Design and Textile Technology - Foundation year, at Amsterdam Fashion Institute, The Netherlands. From September 2017 until July 2019.

Pre studies of Art en Design at Artez , Arnhem, The Netherlands. From August 2016 until February 2017.

Orientation studies of Art en Design at Artez , Arnhem, The Netherlands. From August 2013 until February 2014.

Senior 3D digital fashion designer at Atalye B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands. From April 2021 until present day.

WORK

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FASHION STUDIES AWARDS

Nominated for Lichting 2022 with my graduation collection. June 2022.

My digital collection ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ being exhibit in the largest fashion exhibition of the country: Maison Amsterdam at De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. From September 2021 until April 2022.

2nd place at Onze Lieve Vrouwe Broederschaps (O.L.V.B.) Creativity prize, Houten, The Netherlands.The O.L.V.B. creativity prize is an award for young talents who created art that is socially relevant. The award consisted of €1000 and an exhibition of my collection. April 2016

1st place at Kunstbende in category fashion, Utrecht. The Netherlands. Kunstbende is a big national art contest for kids under 18 years. I won the award in the category of fashion which included several traineeships and exhibitions of my collection. From March 2016 untill April 2016.

HIGH SCHOOL

College de Heemlanden, Houten, The Netherlands. Havo . Graduated in Culture and Society study program. From 2014 until 2016.

College de Heemlanden, Houten, The Netherlands. Vwo . From 2011 until 2014.

FOREVER CHASING GILDED RAINBOWS

RAINBOWS

The concept of my collection Forever Chasing Gilded Rainbows started with my fascination for extreme luxury and wealth. I began asking myself: why do we/I always want to strive for more?

Images 1 & 2: Greenfield, L, 2018, Generation Wealth, Phaidon, New York.

I began researching historic times in which extreme luxury and wealth showing in clothing were most common and necessary to maintain power.

The renaissance had all features of this. I used all the gemstones and big silhouettes from rulers and aristocracy like Elizabeth I and Catherine de’ Medici as an inspiration.

I wanted to show the extreme wealth of some people but in a more suffocating and humorous way. It is also a bit like a warning; by keeping wishing for more and more, you will never be fulfilled.

I created dresses with hundreds of gemstones but there is no possible way of walking in it. Pearls all over, but no way of moving your hands.

PROCESS OF PATTERN MAKING

3. I put the sketch in Blender and here I make the 3D shape in the exact form as skirt has in the sketch.

EMBROIDERY AND EMBELLISHMENTS

I have tried out a lot of variations for embroidery in my collection. In the end, I used my own, screaming face as the main embroidery for one of the

4. I export the avatar with the 3D shape from Blender and import it in CLO 3D. Here I draw the pattern pieces on the 3D shape.

5. I have the 2D pattern pieces of the skirt ready. After adjusting little parts and finalizing the pattern pieces in CLO, I can plot it.

6. With the printed pattern pieces I cut the fabric and make the garment.

To represent the extreme luxury I used a lot of diamonds, gemstones and pearls in my garments.

On the toile I edited the charms to see how many we should make.

At first we made all the pearl strings, later on we attached them underneath the gemstones.

In the styling we used the leftover pearls in the earrings and necklaces.

We are striving more than ever for more clothes, more expensive bags and bigger diamonds. But when will this striving end? When is a person content with what he has? When is the end goal reached? You will only find out when all of these luxuries will suffocate you. It is a forever chasing gilded rainbows.

‘’We are all following toxic dreams. What you are sold in this world, is a bag of rotten goods.’’

In each look there mouths are shut by

there is both wealth and suffocation to be seen. The hands are stuck in the dress or in the sleeves, high collars. In this way I want to warn the viewer and wearer what the result of endless striving for more and more will look like.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Detail shot of a headpiece decorated with hundreds of pearls and diamonds.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

In the specialization Hypercraft I made a digital collection. In order to realize that, physical toiling, draping and sketching helped me a lot during the process.

This collection is a precursor to my graduation collection. It warns the viewer for endlessly wanting to have more or be more successful. Unlike my graduation collection, this project shows the ultimate luxury in a downward spiral.

A lasercut monogram print in neopreen. The diamond made from scratch in Blender.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

The screaming lady. A render from the animation video of Be Careful What You Wish For.

Top: digitally made corset with handmade diamonds and monogram print.

Bottom: Try-out of a irradiance fabric on the cape.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

The digital collection Be Careful What You Wish For, made in CLO 3D and DAZ Studio, is a visual the desire to be wealthy, at any cost. We are more than ever striving for more money and success. we see on Instagram everyday. Being ambitious is good, but what is the price of this endless striving

visual storytelling of our growing obsession with wealth. And it is not about the rich, but about success. That is because we can now compare our selfs with the richest 0.001% of the world who striving for more?

The 3D models and renders I made for clothing brand Atalye. The brand makes made-to-measure clothing. Using a body scanner and in house developed software, we can create tailor-made patterns that we then use to create the garment of the costumers choice, in their exact size.

The goal of the renders is to make it look as realistic as possible for the costumer. They buy the garment after only seeing the digital render.

From March 2021 until July 2021 I did an internship at the Haute Couture department of Viktor & Rolf. I learned a lot about all the technical haute couture skills. I did a lot of hand sewing, and specialized in making brocade 3D flowers. During my time at Viktor & Rolf I have seen how it is to work under high pressure and how much preciseness, attention and detailing is put in one collection.

Another thing I worked on were the fabric diamonds. I spent weeks and weeks on experimenting how to make these in the best way. One diamond could take up to 6 hours to make.

WHERE IS HOME

During this project I specialized myself in hand tufting. The images above show the progress during the project. I experimented a lot with height, sorts of wool and the way of finishing each embellishment.

She immerses herself in a much desired world of her own fantasies, where she can be who she is and always has been. This is her place where everything is possible. She is daring, fearless, crazy, psychedelic, colorful and freaky. It is a happy place, in which she wears everything and does what she doesn’t dare to do in everyday life. It’s a flight. Away from standards, expectations, stereotypes and prejudices.

The collection Where Is Home consisted of 10 looks of which you can see six looks above. During sketching and drawing this collection I have let my own mind go free. I used a lot of organic shapes, pleats and big volumes. These became stereotypical in my handwriting.

Just like Burberry made clothing for the first polar expeditions, Stargazer makes clothing for the explorer in 2040. This collection makes it possible to discover the nearest place a human has never been: Mars.

This collection was made in cooperation with Burberry.

A selection from the technical drawings of the Stargazer collection made in Illustrator.

SUGAR SPICE AND EQUAL RIGHTS

The technical drawings with all dimensions numbered, made by hand. It includes all of the separate pieces this dress consists of.