Zoya(Zhaoyang) Zhang

Zoya Zhang is a fashion designer and 3D Printing engineer based in London. Before coming to RCA, she specialized in Fashion Design and Engineering at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology(BIFT), China, where she acquired skills in CLO 3D.

After turning her attention to 3D modelling and printing, she began to combine clothing design with 3D technical capabilities, such as 3D garment modelling and physical printing design and combining different materials to change the colour and hardness of printed works. Her work includes memory analysis and visualization through Processing software and the Unity-based Argument Reality App.

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Degree Details

My work "Journey To Find 'My' Memory" (JFMM) is striving for an understanding of one’s identity in the future, when memories could be stored as information via chips.

Through recalling, coding and playing three essential memories of mine in software Processing, Rhino and Kano sensor App, combined with a hand shadow performance, I found the resonance of memories in the digital space. 3D garments were eventually created and Varied in Keyshot software based on this resonance.

I hope anyone who wants to redefine their identities through via memories could get inspired, feeling free to download and play with my open source code numbers and digital models, enjoy an unique process to explore their memories and also create their own fashion pieces.

I used to have a lot of toys and diaries, but my dad threw them away when I was young. This experience made me feel there was something lost in my past, and I always want to find it back in my memories. Thus, I did an “A Man with No Memory in the Digital Future” project during my first year at the RCA.

After thinking for a long time about memory and improving skills, I have created a new project, “In Search of My Memory Journey” (JTFMM), to explore the topic of memory and identity in fashion in greater depth.

A Man with No Memory in the Digital Future

My early attempts were to translate memories into brainy codes, the primary computer languages in MATLAB. They were then generating garment structures based on the brainy data in Rhino software and its plugin Grasshopper. I also tested different 3D Printing materials to improve the softness of the 3D models. It was surprising how digital languages change our memories in this process. But the outcomes look more like structures rather than cloth.