About Me
Fashion Design Graduate from the Edinburgh College of Art
Ele Cundall is a British designer specialising in luxury womenswear. Her background in mathematics and physics combines with a meticulous approach to detail and craftsmanship to create classic pieces appealing women from any background, celebrating every and any woman’s body.
As a designer, my interests lie in couture: in luxury craftsmanship and beautiful design considered down to the last detail. Given my background in mathematics, I have always found fixation in the translation of two dimensional shapes onto the three dimensional body through pattern cutting. From an engineering perspective, I am often drawn to advancing technologies, and their potential within my design process, silhouette to textile development seeking to combine cutting edge technology with traditional couture techniques.
INSPIRATION
Exploring the boundary between protective support and restriction through the experience of women.
Thinking of metamorphosis as the process of self-transformation, ‘Imago’ (meaning the final stage of transformation in this process) was borne from exploration of the boundary between protective support and restriction. The need to expand past the limits placed on women’s daily lives, notionally for their own protection, much as in nature the butterfly must eclose from the safety of its cocoon to thrive, drew me towards the Aviatrixes, the first female pilots.
Expanding on the duality of support and restriction, I felt the corset as a garment embodied that theme. Due to the invention of metal eyelets, the beautifully handcrafted corsets of the 1700s, which became almost bra-like in nature were replaced with the infamous tight lacing corsets of the 1800s. ‘Imago’ looks at how something impeding can be deconstructed and reborn into something facilitating the empowerment of the wearer by extrapolating individual elements out of context.
MY WORK
PORTFOLIOS
DETAIL
Deconstructing Restriction through Textiles
Ideas of softness and luxury comfort led the development of materials for this project. I wanted fabrics that felt soft and luxurious against the skin, velvets, shearlings and silks. Through appliqué, piping and topstitching I sought to create the support of boning through softer structure using lines inspired by the hand-boned construction of 18th Century Corsets. Using scaled patterns taken from a collection of corsets from the 1700s, I was able to extrapolate the placement and configuration of the lines onto material surfaces to translate into different contexts on the body. This finally led me to develop laser-cut leather and organza textiles.
"To create something exceptional, your mindset must be relentlessly focussed on the smallest detail."- Giorgio Armani
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