Hannah Cooper

Hannah Cooper is a speculative fashion systems designer. 

Originally from Munich, Germany, she moved to London in 2017 to join the BA Fashion Design Technology: Womenswear course at the London College of Fashion. Graduating in 2020 during the first months of lockdown, deeply influenced her career ambitions. Addressing systemic and environmental issues in the fashion industry, as well as shifting the focus to the individual became her priority.

During her MA at the Royal College of Art, Hannah has developed GRACIOUS STUDIO, a service offering made-to-measure solutions for garment design and fit customization, enabled by body scanning technology and empathetic design thinking.

The final outcome of my MA is GRACIOUS STUDIO, a safe space for negotiating the gaze, customising garments to suit individual needs and learning about the process and the people who bring your vision to life.

For the MA I have been developing an online retail system that addresses difficult issues within the fashion industry: fast fashion, mass production, the male gaze and an absence of inclusivity, a lack of appreciation and a dearth of customization.

My solution is an application for garment design and fit customization, enabled by automation and empathetic design thinking, aimed at individuals who are currently not catered for by the contemporary fashion landscape.

Key research conducted over the past two years has been on the the ethics of body scanning, the development of a system for materialising digital 3D scans and the exploration of the world of bespoke tailoring - the techniques, business models and embedded values.

“The Gracious Studio customer is an individual who does not feel represented or catered to by the mainstream fashion retail market. A body scan turns individuals into digital shells of data. This will allow the disregarding of sizing and gender categories as all that is needed for creating bespoke garments are measurements. The objectification process will become an empowering tool for creating an inclusive fashion system that will speak to various age groups, body types, ethnicities and gender identities. 

They want to avoid binary differentiation of ‘womenswear’ and ‘menswear’, or pressure caused by shop assistants and other customers. They do not want to be categorized by inconsistent sizing systems, nor confronted with unachievable body ideals.

They have unique preferences and needs that are not met and want to play an active part in negotiating societal pressures posed upon them.”

- Hannah Cooper in The Ethics of body Scanning - How Gracious Studio aims at turning the gaze