Fia Jacobs’s graduate collection ‘Metempsychosis’- which means the transmission of souls between bodies- was inspired by her leaving of her family home aged 16 as a result of an abusive alcoholic mother- end of one life and onto the new and beautifully revised one. It’s predominantly inspired by the idea of reincarnation. Fia uses hand designed, laser-cut, diamond, chainmail and hardware to emulate a sense of protection and power, paying homage to the rise of her built-up self after leaving behind dark times. Metempsychosis draws inspiration from Egyptian jewellery and strong female Pharaohs, with the use of powerful and dramatic silhouettes. Fia uses laser cut mirror gold acrylic, her collection displays entirely covered features, reflecting a soulless, featureless being, returning from darkness but this time, with a beautiful suit of armour.

Fia knew from the beginning she wanted to use hardware throughout her collection. By stiffening, eyeleting and manipulating the fabric, Fia developed the silhouette for her looks by draping on the stand. These show a range of styles, of which she then translated into designs on the body and finally into refined, wearable, garments through the process of toiling. Her specific silhouettes show a larger upper-half of the body, this has resulted in strong and powerful silhouette throughout her collection.

For the jacket shape, Fia used her earlier stand work by digitally manipulating sections of the draping by duplicating, mirroring and flipping the images to determine more refined silhouettes. She found this a quick and efficient way to establish sizes, proportions and details of each look. Fia then digitally designed the angles and sizes of the shapes for laser-cutting, then mocked it up in corrugated card on the body before getting it cut into the final, mirror-gold acrylic for the all important chainmail for The Diamond Dress. Using mixed media, Fia combined the silhouette development with finalised sampling into illustrations which allowed her to gain full insight of what the final looks and overall collection would look like.

This is Fia’s final collection line up. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic Fia was only able to create look two and four of her collection of which she had to adapt slightly due to being in lockdown and not being able to obtain the necessary materials needed for the designs. The rest of the collection would have been predominantly made out of scuba/ scuba jersey to obtain the perfect, seamless fit to the body, silks for shiny, eye-catching fishtail dresses for beauty and dramatic effect and finally for the tailored jackets - bi-stretch suiting fabric, fused and stiffened with layers and layers of netting to create structure and hold shape. Fia’s collection line up uses mixed media to show the depth and realisation of each look. From digital placement of her draping and lasercut chainmail sampling to markers and gold leaf paint to really capture and illustrate the beautiful reflective details.