Katie Griffith Morgan

Graduate Collection: Through the Lens

Fashion - BA (Hons)

School of Design

katiegriffithmorgan@gmail.com

www.katiegriffithmorgan.com

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Model wears red laser-etched leather suit

Bio

My name is Katie Griffith Morgan and I am a womenswear designer who is interested in exploring modern craftsmanship and playfulness through fashion. I am greatly inspired by fine-art and photography. When researching, I meticulously look through archives to find inspiration. I balance this with a hands-on approach to making and instinctive draping. I collage influences from modern and historical sources to offer fun, sexiness and sophistication for the modern wardrobe.

My graduate collection, ‘Through the Lens’, aims to capture both the traditional tactile past and the intangible digital future, through a mix of feminine silhouettes and heavier, moodier textiles. Quality and craftsmanship is most important to me. I aim to make precious garments designed for longevity without sacrificing beauty.

Collaborators

Adam Brown

Awards

Finalist - Artsthread International Student Design Competition with Choose Real Leather, 2021 Winner - Accessory Design Competition with Michael Kors and Edinburgh College of Art, 2020 Featured in - 'Body Beautiful: Diversity on the Catwalk' at the National Museum of Scotland, 2019

Skills & Experience

Interned for Richard Quinn, Rejina Pyo, Ports 1961
Studio Manager of Amsterdam Fashion Institute's student run label 'iNDiVIDUALS'
Adobe Suite; Microsoft Office; technical flats; creative pattern cutting and draping; research, sketching, construction and illustration. CLO 3D.

This project began when researching the often discarded photonegative and the private, intimate memories that they contain.

Looking at my personal photo album collection, I value having physical copies of my memories, as I fear them being lost or forgotten on the internet one day. I am also intrigued by the strange intimacy of owning other people’s sentimental objects. To convey this, I created prints from donated negatives and which I laser-etched onto leather and denim to create delicate photographic images.

Introspection and intimacy is also seen in my collection’s second main influence- the ritual of dressing.

I see dressing as a calming ritual, central to my enjoyment of wearing clothes. Influenced by how the wearer interacts with their clothing through twisting, fastening and suspending, I created modular perspex hardware, inspired by ‘lover’s eye’ jewellery. Other inspirations for my collection include 1960s retrofuturism, the work of Shuji Terayama and Margaine-Lacroix’s ‘La Robe Sylphide’.

Model wears pinstripe top and draped skirt

model wears laser-etched red leather jacket

I believe the future of fashion relies on a balance of digital techniques with hand craftsmanship.

My graduate collection has explored this balance between the traditional and futuristic through my laser etched textiles. To find the imagery for the prints, I scoured through discarded negatives. It was a strangely intimate process, and I felt curiosity for the people in the photographs and the people that had viewed them. I liked the anonymity and distortion of other people’s donated negatives, and matched this with etched images of my own body.

To create the etching, I had to transfer the physical negative to a digital file which was then sent to the laser cutter. To make the process more efficient, I digitised the complex patterns for my leather pieces, so the whole garment could be cut and etched electronically. After the pieces were made, the physical craftsmanship began, as the garments had to be treated, eyeleted, lined and then sewn and laced together by hand. I feel like this process embodies modern craftsmanship, as I matched laborious physical processes with automated digital manufacture.