All good comic book artists have a signature style when drawing the characters’ anatomy and postures. Aitor Throup has taken his characters to the next level, sculpting them and then making a garment pattern based on the pose of the character’s form in motion. He calls this process, “branding through construction”. “As a child I was constantly (and still am) drawing the body in motion. I spent my time attempting to give each of my drawings an anatomy of their own. And then one day, something amazing happened: Tim Burton made BATMAN. And in his interpretation of Batman’s mask, he succeeded in giving anatomy to an inanimate object.

I honoured this pivotal design classic by creating a wool jacket with a built-in three-dimensional Batman hood/mask. The cut of the jacket was based on a sculpture of the body in a particular ‘superhero pose’, so it hung in a slightly distorted way. Therefore the whole piece (not just the hood), had its own anatomy. The accompanying trousers were also based on the idea of ‘every-day superheroes’. They were two pairs of trousers interacting with each other: the cut of the internal pair was based on the human muscular system of the legs, creating a sort of fabric version of an anatomical ecorché. The external trousers consisted of exaggerated volume and multiple pleats and darts, concealing the internal structure. Should the wearer ever be called to Superhero duty, he could find the nearest phonebox, turn the trousers inside-out and put his hood up.”

Aitor Throup’s “stickemup”

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The structural elements in the products that we use, the buildings we live in, the clothes that we wear and even the art that we create have a life cycle. Structural origins are functional and relevant but throughout time become deconstructed and nonfunctional. Eventually rooms in a house or construction details in a garment become nothing more than empty gesture. On the other hand, there are fully functional traditions that have been buried by empty gesture, like storytelling. Aitor Throup’s MA collection, “When Football Hooligans Become Hindu Gods”, is a three-dimensional comic that communicates the story of redemption and transcendence told through fabric structures that are based on a platform of football casual.

Throup’s wearable transformation from football hooligan to Hindu god

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