Inspired by The Sims, Sensergy creates an avatar-based campaign for knitwear brand AGR

As the digital world advances in truly unimaginable ways, we continue to be greeted with ever-more experimental and exciting new projects – whether it’s 3D fashion design or face filters completely defying all conceptions of traditional beauty standards. Testing the boundaries of what it means to promote and create a fashion campaign, AGR, a London-based knitwear brand founded by British designer Alicia Robinson, has launched a new project with digital creative studio Sensergy for PlayStation’s first season of Playable.

Creating 3D avatars based on those closest to her, Alicia approached Sensergy to give a helping hand. “The designer wanted her friends to be the avatars – with very fun and light hearted animations in an online and offline form,” Sensergy’s founder Clodie Worboys tells It’s Nice That. Fun and playful, the result is a collection of character-based animations and artworks filled with colour, humour and an entirely unique way of presenting a new fashion collection. Those featured in the short videos include Harry, managing director of nuenemedia and owner of Htown Studio; Rhiannon Barry, founder of Wavey Garms and owner of Ninetyfly; Troy Adams, founder of casting agency Troy Casting; plus stylist Jake Hunte.

Sensergy was a fitting choice for the project – a creative studio founded on the cross-pollination between the words ‘sensory’ with ‘synergy’. “These two ideas are crucial to the concept of our agency,” Clodie says. Devised as her final project during her studies in creative direction for fashion at London College of Fashion, she has since graduated this year and continues to build on the project. “Design is definitely something I always wanted to get into since I was very young,” she says. “I have always been so excited about anything creative, it’s a massive part of who I am.”

Interested in striking an illusory balance between online and real life immersive experiences, Clodie has developed a portfolio that’s filled with future-focused creations. A couple of months ago in September, she was asked by the British Fashion Council to display Sensergy’s work at 180 The Strand, alongside fashion designer Sinead Gorey. “Sensergy created 3D motion graphics, a virtual reality experience and bespoke face filter, where the audience were encouraged to engage with our work,” she says. Following this, Berlin-based collective Trashy Muse invited the team to collaborate on its AR Avatar Catwalk during Paris Fashion Week SS20.

Thus, the project with AGR can be deemed as a suitable next step – honing Sensergy’s digital skills and AGR’s colourful creations in order to produce a physically-inspired digital reality. For the brief, Clodie tells us how she first approached it by “gathering insightful research” into each character – “it’s important to be as accurate as possible before our animators began sculpting,” she says. Upon deciphering the concept, AGR chose hyperreal avatars that have “strong resemblances to her friends, but also a Sims-like feel.”

Like the popular life simulation video game, each character has their own description box – including name, origin, age, job, likes and dislikes – before they go about a scenario that’s in line with their character. “We worked hard sculpting their faces and bodies, comparing them to the images provided which took some time,” says Clodie. “We also worked on each scene to ensure the rooms and animations represented that person’s personality and characteristics – the two together bought that person life!”

As part PlayStation’s new program Playable which launched in September, the project sits alongside Bone Soda and Blast Skates for season one. “[It] was designed as a way for the gaming brand to support some of the UK’s most exciting young creatives and bring one-off bespoke creative projects like this one of life,” says Alicia Robinson, founder of AGR. The future is somewhat unpredictable, yet one thing’s for sure – the fashion world will most likely be filled with tech. “I see the future of fashion heading towards a more immersive, experimental approach,” says Clodie. “I see the future of digital fashion, in particular, going beyond the screen.”