Belle Breslin
My practice is driven by a love of process-led experimentation through a blend of tactile, analogue and digital processes. I’m interested in highlighting overlooked moments and observations, dreamlike environments and unusual crossovers in materials, forms and colour.
My work combines costume, set design, illustration, photography, object-making, book design, and sound composition. With projects focusing on the themes of inner worlds, abstraction and symbolism, surreal narratives, observational studies and the beauty in the mundane.
Egg Tooth
The film ‘Egg Tooth’ is a surreal depiction of a chicken hatching. The process of breaking from a warm, safe shell into the overwhelming unknown is reimagined through symbolic objects, costumes, movement, sound, projections, a cyclical narrative and an interplay of light and colour.
Typographic Jazz
Clamshell Box with Prints (32 x 45 x 3cm)
This box includes three collections of patterns and forms, each derived from different types of improvisation. The playful nature of the work allows any element and form to be combined, creating unusual and unplanned final prints.
1. Patterns and typographical forms derived from gestural improvisations. Tracking movements through green dots attached to the hands and body.
2. Rotating, expanded three-dimensional letters at different angles to produce interesting forms. Further abstracting these shapes by enlarging elements of their wireframes.
3. Constructing letterforms using circle cut-outs of previous collections. An improvised process through repurposing offcuts in varying arrangements.
4. Combination prints: overlaying elements from all three collections.
Anti-Bland Armour
This project explores clothing as a reflection of a person’s inner world and individual interests, through a collection of experimental ‘anti-bland’ costumes. The work draws inspiration from historical dress, ceremonial outfits, talismanic shirts, battle armour, cubist costume paintings and theatre.
Informed by research into ornamentation and embellishment in historical clothing, and how these details communicate symbolic information and personal narratives about the wearer. The anti-bland armour reflects this idea of wearing information through symbols and text, using my own archive of observations and photographs of overlooked and found items. Examples include bits of metal, a car manual on a concrete floor and a wonky number nine painted on the street. Elements from these observations have been translated, rearranged, and abstracted using analogue methods to create unusual compositions, patterns and symbols that link to my inner world through paper and metal-based costumes.
Pocket Shirt
This publication documents the process and steps taken to create the Pocket Shirt. Influenced by historical pattern making, the world’s first garments, bespoke tailoring, contemporary sculpture, Japanese inrō, 17th-century tie-on pockets, workwear and toolboxes. The project highlights the lack of made-to-measure clothing being produced today, tailoring the garment to a person’s objects rather than their body. The shirt is not intended for everyday wear; instead, it serves as a concept exploring how people may adapt and personalise clothing that functions for them.
Trinket Poster
A hypothetical poster for one of Trinket LA Antique’s pop-up sales.
Milan Map
This project explores how overlooked objects and observations can build a personal visual map of an experience. Focusing on the images I took during a 48-hour trip to Milan. Milan is known for its opulence, architecture and fashion, although I captured a series of images of strange shapes, unusual colour combinations, and unique juxtapositions of objects. This inspired me to create an abstract and symbolic map of Milan using 48 photos, from which I extracted symbols and rearranged them based on their actual locations, building up a visual record of my findings.
Study of Play
Play is a fundamental and often overlooked part of design. This project explores ten responses to the prompt of ‘play’ through three collections of blocks, sticks and colours. I have drawn inspiration from children’s toys, which allow for free and intrinsically driven decision-making.
I asked ten people to simply ‘play’ with the objects, which led to a wide variety of outcomes. Some responses were abstract and process-led, focusing on experimentation and form, others were more intentional, creating narratives or aiming to construct something recognisable.
The final publication is a collection of these varied outcomes, highlighting how simple objects can create unexpected and interesting ideas, and how these unplanned resolutions can be translated into design.
