Designer Fredrik Tjærandsen

Fredrik Tjærandsen

Fredrik Tjærandsen

Fredrik Tjærandsen’s approach to fashion focuses on performance, motion, and the body in relation to the space around it. While his now-viral graduate show featured abstract bubbles, in futuristic colors, he cites his traditional upbringing in rural Norway as a source of inspiration for his sustainable business and design practice. His unconventional garments are highly sculptural, crafted from sustainable latex, and exude dynamic movement. When Jaime Perlman from More or Less approached him to participate in Augmented Atelier, he was most excited by the unprecedented creative challenge that the project posed and the potential it could hold for the future of fashion design.

A white man with short brown hair stands in front of a cutting table with several rolls of gauzy fabric in shades of sunset. He’s wearing a dark pink t-shirt.

Though you wouldn’t expect Fredrik’s dramatic and modern-looking designs to be rooted in tradition, family history is actually central to his work. He describes his design process as artistic, intuitive, and emotional: he’s drawn to working with visuals that captivate his emotions or feelings in that moment. His process seemed well-suited to the digital challenge of Augmented Atelier. He explains, “I usually work best in 3D experimentation.”

Three images next to each other: on the left, a closeup of a model wearing a light orange latex bubble. In the middle, a closeup of a black model wearing a giant black vinyl balloon-like garment. On the right, a model wears a light red latex bubble garment, enclosing their body from their knees up.

Still, designing for a 360 view built with Azure Spatial Anchors offered some surprises. “The Microsoft technology provided us with 3D views of the digitally manipulated garments and left a lot of room for experimentation and presentation through the process.”

Creatively, it also gave way to tons of new room for experimentation. Rapid iteration is not possible when hand-crafting garments with materials like latex that are both expensive and hard to manipulate. “Normally, there are physical limits like gravity and size and material restrictions. Now these can be eliminated. There’s a whole new range of ideas that suddenly pop up for me that I can visualize within the project.” Whether he’s working physically or digitally, creation without confines is Fredrik’s preferred working mode. This can be traced back to his deeply artistic background. His process is incredibly intuitive and he found it was well suited to Augmented Atelier.

“Creativity grows with facing new situations and techniques and technologies,”

- Fredrik Tjærandsen

This animation shows the evolution of a digital garment on a spinning physical model. First the garment, a tangle of tubular forms, is rendered opaquely in white. Then it becomes clear, then it is a shiny black material, like latex or vinyl. We then see the final digital garment on a tablet, in front of a naked mannequin.
Two images side by side. On the left, a digital garment: a tangle of shiny black tubular forms totally covering the mannequin except for the top of its head. On the right, we see the same digital garment clothing the mannequin on the tablet, in front of the naked physical mannequin.
Two images side by side: On the left, a mannequin with a digital garment that is a tangle of inflated red tubes. On the right, a touchscreen tablet with the names Bethany Williams, Fredrik Tjaerandsen, Pheobe English, and Rottingdean Bazaar, and a finger poised above it.

“Normally, there are physical limits like gravity and size and material restrictions. Now these can be eliminated. There’s a whole new range of ideas that suddenly pop up for me that I can visualize within the project.”

- Fredrik Tjærandsen

Two images side by side: On the left, a mannequin with a digital garment that is a tangle of inflated shiny black latex tubes. On the right, a hand holds a tablet in front of a naked mannequin. On the screen we see the mannequin dressed in the same digital garment.

Fredrik’s experience with digital design left him feeling encouraged and excited by a new eco-friendly avenue for creation. “I was surprised by how much the day to day process in the studio could benefit from technology like this. It helps with exploring new ideas and saving costs and working more sustainably. The idea of a garment changes once you understand the full scope of what this technology can do.”

Two images side by side: On the right, a white man with short brown hair in a pink t-shirt takes a photo of himself in the mirror. Next to the mirror we see graphite sketches of his designs. On the right, a digital mannequin is surrounded by clear tubular forms.
A mannequin stands in front of a light pink backdrop in someone’s living room. It is clothed in a digital garment: a white glowing light, roughly in the shape of a dress with large, wing-like sleeves.
Two people hold up tablets in front of a naked mannequin. On the tablets, we see the mannequin dressed in a digital garment: a white glowing light, roughly in the shape of a dress with large, wing-like sleeves.

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