Garments in/for virtual space: digital-only fashion design and haptic experience

Abstract Fashionable clothing has always been associated with cultural identities, self-expression, and social hierarchy in traditional fashion studies. However, established understandings and ways of examining garments, which prioritize symbolic representation in the form of pattern and material, for example, are being expanded due to the impact brought about by continuously developing digital technologies. This research, therefore, focuses on the intersection of bodily experience in digital making, the ‘flattened’ garment in virtual space, and digital fashion design in terms of fashion design education. Digital-only fashion design extends cultural understanding and self-expression into the world of the virtual while reshaping the design process. The article proposes that digital-only fashion design offers a new type of haptic experience in the present-day mixed reality environment. The article examines how digital-only garment design transforms bodily experience, haptic engagement, and spatial meaning-making in virtual environments, while considering the cultural and experiential dimensions of dematerialization. Case studies from the Digital Fashion programme at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) are examined to understand how digital-only fashion design involves body–space relation and spatial storytelling to make meaning in the digital world.