A modular clothing system which celebrates getting dressed as a creative act.

Strategy

Branding

Prototyping

Art Direction

Problem:
Fast fashion is destructive.

The fashion industry produces 92 million tonnes of textile waste every year and is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. Most clothing is designed for short-term wear, with little consideration for longevity or adaptability. Fast fashion encourages overconsumption and leaves people with closets full of pieces that no longer fit their bodies or identities. Pieced was created to change that.

A bold new take on clothing.

Versatile pieces that adapt to your vibe, your body, and your style. Each piece is designed to be tied, twisted, and transformed.

Pieced is all about fewer, better garments that evolve with you, even as life (and your body) changes. It’s fashion that fits, lasts, and turns heads, giving you all the expression of fast fashion but without the waste.

Think Legos, but clothes.

High-quality fabric panels, each with grommets that let you tie, twist, loop, and fasten them any way you like. Think of them as Legos for your body.

They're building blocks for creating bold looks with ease, remixing your outfit on the fly, and when you're ready for something new, just take it apart and start again. No sewing, no commitment, just infinite possibilities for your inner fashion designer.

Small, high-quality fabric panels, each with grommets that let you tie, twist, loop, and fasten them any way you like. Think of them as Legos for your body.

They're building blocks for creating bold looks with ease, remixing your outfit on the fly, and when you're ready for something new, just take it apart and start again. No sewing, no commitment, just infinite possibilities for your inner fashion designer.

High-quality fabric panels, each with grommets that let you tie, twist, loop, and fasten them any way you like. Think of them as Legos for your body.

They're building blocks for creating bold looks with ease, remixing your outfit on the fly, and when you're ready for something new, just take it apart and start again. No sewing, no commitment, just infinite possibilities for your inner fashion designer.

This one's for the creatives

Process

Ideation.

I began with the idea of long, attached straps to a rectangular piece of fabric. This way, you could tie and twist them any way you like. But I soon realized that the long straps might get in the way of many designs.

Design.

My next idea was a more modular approach, where the Pieces are just basic shapes where you can place straps anywhere you want. In this vein, the straps could be anything as well - fasteners, buttons, ribbons, etc. This would allow for much more customization.

Build

I decided to make the shapes into triangles; not all the pieces would have to be triangular, but making this fidelity of prototype into triangles would allow for much more exploration of different shapes, styles, and sizes.

After the first iteration of triangles I realized they needed more fortification to prevent from unwanted stretching in the gaps between the grommets. I solved this by doubling the amount of fabric used, in the process making each piece reversible to allow for maximization of design opportunities.

Refinement.

Refinement.

And finally, I came to a working prototype! This is a piece that I wore to the sand dunes, where I hiked all the way to the top and it didn't fall apart. Not that I thought it was going to, I'm just happy it didn't.

App Interface

What does an app for pieced look like?

When considering Piece's online presence, the obvious route is E commerce. But the outlaw-ish nature of the brand begged for something a bit more ~fun~ so I elected to go a different route: Gamified in-app creations. You can build a piece right in the app and dress an avatar, with ai generated directions for IRL wearing.

The app would have a social component where you can see what other people are making as well, creating a creative community. Finished pieces are saved to a scrapbook where you can always find them again. And when you want a refresh, the store is always there for you with new patterns, shapes, and vibes.

This way, it's not just commerce. It's a collection.

Design.

When iterating on my wireframes, I wanted to keep an emphasis on playfulness and creation. The Piece Builder feature vaguely steals conceptually from Nike ID, but in a gridded way where it feels like you're actually getting your hands a bit dirty in the building process.

Refinement.

I really liked this idea of dressing an avatar with the pieces. The concept is reminiscent of the computer games I used to play in the early 2000s, where the entire game was just creating the most fashionable looks for your little virtual doll. I wanted to bring this emphasis on customization, creation, and beautiful details to Pieced.