Ceridwen is a collection inspired by the powerful shape-shifting figure of Ceridwen from Welsh mythology and the medieval Welsh stories of the Mabinogion. Ceridwen is associated with transformation, inspiration, magic and rebirth, and her story became a starting point for exploring the idea of identity as something fluid and continually evolving.

Showcased at London Fashion Week SS24 on the official British Fashion Council schedule, the collection brought together Welsh mythology, experimental textiles, sustainable innovation and digital fabrication. The garments imagined Ceridwen through a contemporary lens, exploring the changing forms of the female body and the idea that transformation can be a source of power, resilience and self-realisation.

A central element of the collection was a pioneering silk-like taffeta developed from ocean plastic waste, created through a collaboration with Solaris Community, Ruffo Coli and the United Nations. The resulting material transformed discarded ocean plastic into a luxurious textile, creating a direct relationship between the mythology of transformation and the physical transformation of waste into something new.

Pierson also collaborated with Stratasys using its 3DFashion technology to create full-colour, multi-material 3D-printed lenticular embellishments directly onto the textile, also using recycled ocean-plastic material. The technology allowed the surface of the garments to become almost animate, with dimensional and optical qualities that echoed Ceridwen’s shifting forms. Stratasys described the work as an innovative application of direct-to-textile 3D printing and highlighted the collection’s combination of Welsh Celtic heritage, sustainability and digital technology.

The collection therefore became an exploration of transformation on multiple levels: mythological transformation through Ceridwen’s shapeshifting; material transformation through ocean plastic becoming luxury textile; technological transformation through 3D printing; and personal transformation through clothing and the changing identity of the wearer.

At its heart, Ceridwen asks what it means to transform, to shed one form and inhabit another, and how fashion can become a vehicle for that transformation. Rather than simply illustrating mythology, the collection uses myth as a living framework through which ideas of femininity, power, nature, sustainability, identity and metamorphosis can be reimagined for the present.