The Wheel of Time: an exploration in costume design for Fantasy worlds

The Wheel of Time project was realised in fulfillment of my Performance Costume MFA, in order to give practical substance to the research I had been doing into ways of building secondary world cultures through costuming.

I wanted to express the Wheel’s world through very simple cuts, contrasting with and elaborately woven textiles. I developed a style of pattern cutting which used only square and rectangular shapes of material – intended to be sewn together straight off the loom. I investigated the variety of textures I could create through weaving, developing a variety of samples on an antique Irish 8-shaft loom, and culminating in the weaving of my own material for the final costumes.