London College of Fashion is building a specialist lab where researchers and industry partners will create virtual textiles and clothing that look and move realistically on screen. The lab, part of UAL’s new East Bank campus, will combine expertise in digital computing, fashion curation, and performance dress to tackle a gap: UK research capacity in virtual production and extended reality (VP/XR) for textiles and dress is limited, hindering advanced development beyond traditional practices. This matters because cultural institutions like the V&A and Royal Shakespeare Company want to digitise historic garments and costumes—enabling virtual try-ons, populating hybrid live performances with archive-informed characters, or creating digital assets for gaming and virtual worlds. Currently, the skills and infrastructure to do this at scale are scarce. If successful, the lab could unlock new markets for the creative and cultural economy. Museums could monetise digital archives through NFTs or immersive visitor experiences. Fashion and performance industries could prototype garments virtually before production. The project is applied, not fundamental science: it builds infrastructure and training to meet specific sector needs, from technical craft to real-time rendering.
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University of the Arts London's London College of Fashion (UAL LCF) will be housed at the new East Bank campus (2023). UAL at East Bank will form part of a new powerhouse for research, innovation, creativity and learning through a novel collaboration between world-leading universities, cultural bodies, and local communities. UAL's new campus will provide a specialist VP/XR Lab facility for collaborative research, industry-partnered R&D, PGR study, and ECR opportunities. UAL, via its Fashion Textiles and Technology Institute (FTTI) at East Bank, will create capacity for innovative, transdisciplinary, practice-led research in VP/XR textiles and dress. To address this specialist field, the university will convene a unique range of technical craft and digital expertise across UAL's constituent Colleges, Institutes and Research Centres, also including the Creative Computing Institute (CCI), the Centre of Fashion Curation, the Performing Dress Lab, the Fashion and Innovation Agency (FIA), and the London College of Communication (LCC). The specialist VP/XR laboratory will drive forward an ambitious research agenda, and build capacity to meet wide ranging sector needs, supporting significant growth potential for the UK's creative and cultural economy. UAL VP/XR facilities will: Provide prototyping opportunities, to identify textiles and dress research that will build HEI and industry capability through collaboration and skills development. Expand current research expertise, defining processes to question, and ensure technical craft and digital practices. Grow future capacity through PGR provision and novel PG course design, in technical craft and digital skills. Connect to a new generation of students, embedding UAL's reputation for practical application and industry-ready study. Establish provision using integrated support, with training provided for existing UAL technical teams. The opportunity to enable digital access to historical textile and dress archives, and potentially monetise these assets as they move into screen and real-time spaces is as yet unrealised. Cultural institutions such as the V&A and RSC are seeking to explore new opportunities to create novel content and monetise existing assets via: Virtual depiction of heritage textiles and dress and new experiences for visitors (e.g. enabling the virtual 'try-on' garments and costume) Heritage/and archive-informed clothed characters in hybrid live performances Aesthetically enhanced depictions of the moving clothed body in immersive and live performance environments, gaming, screen, and wider cultural and commercial contexts Digital archival dress and costume as a form of personal expression in the virtual world Creation of textile and dress-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Exploration of these possibilities will create new markets for the creative and cultural sectors, driving the build of skills to serve them. However, UK-wide research-led capacity and skills in this field are limited, hindering access and advanced development beyond traditionally associated practices and disciplines, which UAL VP/XR facilities will address.
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