Elena Richter - Fachhochschule Bielefeld

Re/Replica – Fachhochschule Bielefeld

My name is Elena Richter, a fashion designer from Germany, and I earned my master’s degree during the 2025–2026 winter semester at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences. During my studies, I developed a keen interest in the intersection of fashion and digital technologies. In my work, I explore how digital tools open up new creative possibilities and expand traditional notions of fashion. I question the boundaries between physical and virtual reality and investigate how fashion can be experienced in future digital spaces. For me, fashion is a medium for telling stories, making emotions visible, and opening up new perspectives on the body, identity, and technology.

The Re/Replica collection explores the concept of identifying with digital avatars and uses design to examine processes of imitation, appropriation, and transformation.

Fragments, gestures, postures, and perspectives are adopted, recombined, and integrated into one’s own expression. The avatar appears as a constructed, digital

image—a collection of pixels—yet still exerts a tangible influence on one’s self-image.

In this process, identity is not replaced, but rather partially dissolved and reassembled. Through the conscious selection and shifting of individual elements, a transformed self-perception emerges in which the self and the adopted intertwine.

The collection treats identity as a dynamic state and describes the boundary between self and image as fluid, open, and never fixed.

Credits:

Photographer: Eda Sağlam Assistant: Edward Roth Model: Janik Peltzer Model: Teresa Niedermeyer