Rachel Freire is a London based artist and designer working in fashion, costume and garment technology. They are self taught in pattern cutting and trained in Design for Performance at Central St. Martins. Inhabiting the spaces where disciplines meet, their works focuses on intricate, evocative detailing, narrative garments and exploring the relationship between futuristic applications and traditional techniques. They accidentally launched a conceptual fashion label in 2009 to explore the idea of clothing as armour, embarking on a self taught fashion degree live on the catwalks of London Fashion Week.
Rachel Freire Studio focuses on value attribution and how to make sustainability inherent in future design logic, contributing to the roadmap of boutique production and scalability for wearables: integrating technology, craftsmanship and experimental techniques with high-end garment manufacture processes. Their East London atelier hosts a myriad of projects and collaborations, working with highly skilled artists and technicians who can be found in the credits. They are currently fascinated with the reality of combining fabrics and circuits to create functional garments for the future and are the textile designer of mi.mu gloves, a gestural interface to compose and perform music with your hands. Their work is designed to tell stories, or to inspire them.
current status 2024 IRL + Max Planck with SenSInt + freelance from April 1st [so drop me a line]
2023: IRL + guest researcher at Max Planck Institute for Informatics [MPI-INF] with Sensorimotor Interaction Group [SenSInt]
2022: Secret Scifi Budapest adventures [edit: Dune part 2!] + relocating to Santiago De Compostela with Intangible Realities Laboratory [IRL]
