This research-creation thesis moves between theory and practice to inquire into the mediation and transformation of everyday textile materials into visual images. Central concerns are the image and its connection to increasing textile overproduction. Design techniques informed by handmaking and embodied practices are combined with interdisciplinary approaches from media theory and sensory studies to generate discursive design artifacts. The translation of the tactile senses is explored through image-making, alongside a simultaneous historical investigation of the textile through a variety of its changing representational states. Through three distinctive mediums—rag paper, analog image, and networked digital media image—this project examines the affective relationships between wearer and worn, the textile and the body, and the alteration of their connections through representation and symbolisation.

A series of studies that re-imagine everyday textiles and garments through image are presented. Through this practice-based inquiry the potential of research-creation to contribute towards alternative and more holistic ways of making and sharing fashion and textile materials is explored.