Reviving Avante Garde via Engineering
By Lizzie Schneider
Fashion and engineering are not typically thought of as related. When thinking of fashion, many imagine haute couture or ready-to-wear which has proven to be somewhat of a formula year after year. Some would argue that in recent years, fashion has become more about wearability and business than true art. However, modern engineering and machinery is bringing fashion back to its couture roots.
Cameron Hughes is a TikTok creator who, after gaining virality, boasts a following of 530.3k followers. The 28-year old earned his BFA from Syracuse University and began designing and creating garments with a life of their own. What sets him apart is not his pattern-making or construction, but his incorporation of machinery into his designs. After posting process videos of a dress that changes colors from blue to red and black in a vertical ombre effect with the use of hydraulics, TikTok users were in awe. His transparency of the process behind the creation of the machinery, motors and engines, as well as the design process, was fascinating and well documented, getting viewers invested. His next project involved feathers. Chronicling the installation of micro-motors attached to feathers with wiring running between a base of neoprene and faille satin exterior, Hughes’s dress gives the illusion of inhaling and exhaling. Not to be outdone, his next creation was a dress that literally printed receipts. In a recent Vogue article, Hughes said that as his favorite dress he has ever made.
Fashion is about reinventing the wheel, and the inclusion of innovative technology is what sets Hughes apart. The incorporation of the servos-a motor-driven system and 3D printers to make encasements and soldered controller boards hidden inside the garments is something no big name designers have delved into. Many fashion brands have focused on ready-to-wear collections, cranking out looks from season to season. While these are versatile to appeal to broader audiences and contribute to the world’s increasingly capitalist-minded shift, the roots of fashion are it as an art form — a little wacky, a little avante garde, a little out of the box. Cameron Hughes and his creations truly are fashion in its truest form.
Cameron Hughes is a TikTok creator who, after gaining virality, boasts a following of 530.3k followers. The 28-year old earned his BFA from Syracuse University and began designing and creating garments with a life of their own. What sets him apart is not his pattern-making or construction, but his incorporation of machinery into his designs. After posting process videos of a dress that changes colors from blue to red and black in a vertical ombre effect with the use of hydraulics, TikTok users were in awe. His transparency of the process behind the creation of the machinery, motors and engines, as well as the design process, was fascinating and well documented, getting viewers invested. His next project involved feathers. Chronicling the installation of micro-motors attached to feathers with wiring running between a base of neoprene and faille satin exterior, Hughes’s dress gives the illusion of inhaling and exhaling. Not to be outdone, his next creation was a dress that literally printed receipts. In a recent Vogue article, Hughes said that as his favorite dress he has ever made.
Fashion is about reinventing the wheel, and the inclusion of innovative technology is what sets Hughes apart. The incorporation of the servos-a motor-driven system and 3D printers to make encasements and soldered controller boards hidden inside the garments is something no big name designers have delved into. Many fashion brands have focused on ready-to-wear collections, cranking out looks from season to season. While these are versatile to appeal to broader audiences and contribute to the world’s increasingly capitalist-minded shift, the roots of fashion are it as an art form — a little wacky, a little avante garde, a little out of the box. Cameron Hughes and his creations truly are fashion in its truest form.