Apparel Design · rfalconvargas
Translation Poncho
Translation Poncho is a conceptual garment explored entirely in 3D, presented as an animated draping video rather than a physical prototype. It reimagines the poncho — a borderless, one-size silhouette — as a vehicle for cross-cultural translation and communication, using digital fabrication to study how the form falls, folds, and reads on the body.
Discipline
Apparel Design
Year
2022
Medium
Garment · 3D concept
The Work
Watch it move
Reflection
Reflection
I wanted the poncho to do more than cover the body — I wanted it to carry the idea of translation, of meeting halfway between cultures, and the poncho’s open, unstructured shape felt like the right canvas for that. Working in 3D let me draft the drape and movement before committing to fabric, so I could judge how the garment lived on a moving figure rather than a flat pattern. This was a draft-1 render, and you can feel that in it — me testing whether the concept holds up in motion before refining the material and surface story. Apparel, for me, sits at the intersection of body, narrative, and material behavior.
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Translation Poncho