31 March 2022
NEXT TO THE METAVERSE
#IstitutoSecoli
The future professionals now are studying, growing and honing their knowledge and skills. They have to marvel, experiment, make mistakes, try again and once again.
The Italian textile market needs professionals capable of imagining, conceptualizing, knowing how to use the digital tools needed today, and above all who know as much as possible about the textile production chain, its raw materials and processes.
For this to be possible, companies and the school system, today's experts and students must work together to exchange knowledge and trends for mutual benefit and growth.
Believing that this is the way forward MIC has supported Elena Artoni's thesis project Next to the Metaverse.
THE PROJECT
Elena Artoni, a fashion design student at the Carlo Secoli Institute in Milan, developed her thesis project investigating the theme of the metaverse, in a fashion dimension, entitled Next to the Metaverse.
Dividing the concept of the metaverse into 3 themes - Symbiosis, Definition and Illusion - she represented the first theme through the creation of an outfit composed of a hooded organza jacket and a reflective knit dress with bangs and stretch marks.
The student used Reflect-MIC reflective yarn in the knitted structure of the dress, to represent the close connection and fusion between the real and digital worlds: the reflective effect and the long bangs symbolize the union of the biological and digital body, like a physical avatar, which is completed by the fluid reflections of the organza hood and the patterned jacket.
THE YARN
Reflective yarn 33% PES - 67% PU with glass microspheres.
Reflective yarn with round section, recommended for sewing or knitting where visibility is the distinctive element.
THE RESULT
• The dress
The dress designed by E.A. is characterized by a soft and asymmetrical line, slightly flattened with American sleeves and crater collar. Peculiar are the stitching not only on the finishing but also in the DV and DT center of the garment. The bottom of the dress has stretch marks, bangs, flying buttonholes and mother of pearl buttons.
FOCUS YARN - The dress was created with a reflective yarn woven in a cast-on knit with stitch 5 in double yarn. REFLECT-MIC 30 - Tex 90 was used for the realization.
The reflectivity of the yarn allows high visibility when illuminated by beams of light.
• The jacket
The jacket that completes the outfit has a straight line with boat neckline that extends to the back with a U-shaped cut. The large hood is characterized by gathers all along the cut. The sleeves are long and have 3 pleats on the inside of the sleeve and a suspender cut on the front. Hidden by an overlap, in the center front is the zipper closure.
"I chose to represent the SIMBIOSIS theme with reflect-mic yarn because it could give me that feeling of digital connection given by its reframing through a beam of light."
Elena A.

Elena Artoni
Student at the Carlo Secoli Institute in Milan.
She attended the course of Fashion design, patternmaking and tailoring womenswear.
She conceived and realized the three-year thesis project Next to the Metaverse, presented here.
He collaborated with Lectra, for the July 2021 edition of GE NE RA, in the use of new technologies for cutting the fabric from single sheet to multilayer, for the realization of paper patterns and cutting of the garment.