Eetu Heikkinen

Hang, Freeze, Crash – Video game and hardware glitches meet Victorian clothing Eetu Heikkinen’s BA thesis collection deeply explores the glitches and errors in video games, and how they distort worlds, characters, and objects. Here, real life becomes the broken physics engine, and garments are the glitching objects. This abstract concept of a glitch was brought to life using mid-Victorian silhouettes and structures/structure materials. The glitches affect the shape of the garments, the appearance and behaviour of the materials. The collection is heavily material-focused, combining knitwear, jacquards, prints, and sporty tailoring. The garments blend Victorian men- and womenswear, focusing on garments like skirts, corsets and suit jackets. Material glitches can be seen through prints (BIOS system corruptions), knit structures (multidimensional materials), and jacquards (modern glitchy takes on history). It’s as if Victorian characters entered a digital realm and got stuck. The looks make up a collection of 6 outfits looking to find their way back to history. The knitted garments were made using both the semi-automatic and fully automatic knitting machines. Jacquards and prints were made using the fully automatic machines. All of the material designs were made on the computer, mainly using photos of glitches found from video game forums as an inspiration.