Cecilia Kugler
MA thesis
2021
ILLUSIONS – Transforming fashion to animation through abstraction: a novel approach
This research is about transforming content from a different medium and generating a story based on the source content and supporting literature. This thesis examines how a fashion collection transformed into an animated narrative through several levels of abstraction. The research is made of two main components, the first part is a project that was developed for Tallinn Fashion Week 2020, and the second part is an extensive documentation of my self-reflective work process. The project of this thesis is ILLUSIONS, a 40 second animated short film made for Estonian fashion designer, Tauri Västrik’s collection. This animated short acts as a case study for interdisciplinary storytelling, and how a fashion collection was interpreted through visual abstraction, and literature. As a part of the research, I developed different ways to visualize and analyse the work process and to understand and communicate the reflective actions better. This research claims that the frequent change of tools during creative work can trigger reflection which allows the practitioner to overcome unexpected creative obstacles and
deliver the project within strict time constraints. In conclusion, through practice-based research, this thesis contributes to the discussion around reflective creative practice.