Salford graduate blends stunning fashion and mixed reality for immersive show

NESS Project Volume One featured augmented reality-enhanced photography, a mixed reality headset game, sensory features including smell and taste and sculptural displays of Dylan Furness’ NESS project collection.

The show, hosted at Manchester’s The Yard, was a great atmospheric success with many industry experts approaching Lily to offer her work as a marketing consultant after the show.

Lily’s 3D Scans Artwork and Motion Graphics were in part inspired by her final degree project on her MSc Games and Extended Realities course, where she examined how fashion brands used extended reality technologies to bring people into physical spaces after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using software like Blender, Unity and Unreal Engine, Lily Taylor applied emerging technologies to create immersive artwork, looking at how they were being used in marketing and using theory to conceptualise ideas.

Although this show was a one-off event, NESS Project Volume One will be included in the MA Pathways Degree show ‘PAST/CONTINUOUS’ on display in the New Adelphi building from Wednesday 9 October until Monday 21 October.

Emma Nuttall, a Lecturer in MSc Games and Extended Realities, said: “Lily was Immediately impressive. She came in with a thought that she wanted to be doing something with marketing, but her project is entirely underpinned by so much research that she's put together. It's very rigorously thought out.”

Lily said: "The exhibition fully immerses visitors into Dylan’s brand story, using his strong brand aesthetics to curate a future-facing, phygital experience, engaging all senses and using peak technological innovation.”

Dylan is a recent graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University’s Manchester Fashion Institute and a resident designer at The Yard. He described the distinctive designs from their final collection as a storytelling platform for a dystopian world of the nearby future, based around the concept of creating camouflage for overgrown and abandoned city scapes.

They said: “It went really well, being able to do it at The Yard meant that it was a lot easier to set it all up. I started designing there three months ago, and they give you access to all the machines, and there are tutors available twice a week that can help you.”

The Yard will also be putting together a launch of the designs of its twelve in-house designers this November.

Jo Hamburger, Co-Founder of The Yard Manchester, said: “What stood out most was how the event’s creativity eclipsed any need for a massive budget. The synergy of fashion, texture, sound, and technology was both artfully detailed and emotionally impactful.

“The Yard's industrial aesthetic and expansive atrium provided the perfect backdrop, reinforcing the dystopian feel while elevating the narrative of Furness' brand.”

The project was also praised by GLITCH magazine who called it ‘a unique immersive experience’ that ‘plunged’ visitors into the world of Dylan’s designs.