Garment Concept

Lighting has been used for aesthetical effect throughout history. With the progression of photography and parallel technologies, light has become, not just a vehicle for art, but it's own medium.

Team Lumière wants to explore the medium of refraction in lighting arts. Several refractive artisans stood out from our research. One was UK based Alan Jaras who has always “sought to find a bridge between art and science” using photography and purely analogue patterns formed by light beams through refractive objects. But our favorite lighting artists are M.R.I., a team based in Queens, New York. Their art invokes “old portraits of religious figures...with a modern twist” using 10-30 second exposures and lots of crazy lights. MRI doesn’t want lighting art to be “a lofty, unattainable thing, [but instead wants] to offer the opportunity to make memorable images [for] everyone.” For our team, the most influential elements of M.R.I’s work are transparency and the physical movement of light, shape, and color.

Team Lumière’s collection will embody luminosity and fluidity with garments constructed from a variety of cutting edge textiles and sustainable materials. Examples of these fabrics are Luminex, which can emit its own light in different colors. It is a new material created at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that has light sensitive fibers that act like a rudimentary camera, and comes from sustainably sourced and dyed fabrics, such as sustainably sourced silk and organic cotton.

Just as M.R.I. seeks to bring refractive art to the people, our silhouettes will celebrate the human body in all its forms. Our ultimate goal is to mesh the spectrum of refractive light and physical form--a garment that brings out the wearer's inner and outer glow.