Coralace

A 3D textile system encapsulating organic forms, movement and light

Coralace is a soft-material sculptural system developed by Suzy Syme and Andrew Costa that combines 3D printed coral-cell structures with sheer silk organza to create suspended fields of translucency, movement and structural variation. The system binds digital fabrication with textile behaviour, allowing one authored language to move between body-scale prototyping, sculptural lighting and crafted accessory outcomes. Across the works below, Coralace demonstrates how a materially specific system can test attachment, density, light and formal articulation without relying on fashion framing.

System Logic

Coralace uses digitally grown coral-like cell arrays distributed across textile fields through pattern logic that controls density, openness and structural emphasis. Attractors vary the scale of cells and their spacing, while printed edges become working seams that clip neatly across the textile surface. The result is a lightweight, translucent system in which structure and softness remain active together.

Featured Applications

Ocean's Veil - Sculptural Lighting

A sculptural lighting application of Coralace, translating the system’s suspended coral-cell logic into a luminous hanging form. The work demonstrates how translucency, layered density and cellular patterning can produce atmosphere and sculptural presence beyond the body.

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Reef Rising - Wearable Art

Awarded: Australian Wearable Art Festival Emerging Designer

A major Coralace Wearable Art piece developed as an ode to Australia’s coral reefs. ‘Grown’ through complex visual programming the piece features over 10,000 unique coral cells, combining a GridShell centrepiece and matching crown headdress with the suspended coral-cell textile in sheer organza. Rather than a simple prototype, Reef Rising demonstrates Coralace at full artistic intensity: immersive, body-enveloping and conceptually tied to reef loss, resilience and restoration.

Art Couture - Coralace Collection

As seen at Brisbane Fashion Festival & Melbourne Fringe Festival 2025

Resolved applications of the system across Coralace Sets and the Lamellae Series, where suspended coral-cell structures, silk organza and tailored components are developed into structured art couture ensembles. These works show how Coralace can move from experimental textile logic into refined, high-impact couture outcomes while retaining translucency, cellular growth, structural linework and strong sculptural presence.

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Coraline - Accessories Collection

A crafted-object extension of Coralace seen in boutique outcomes including Coraline clutches, earrings and related accessories. These pieces distil the system’s coral-derived cellular language into intimate collectible forms, translating its rhythmic surface pattern, layered construction and sculptural precision into smaller wearable and hand-held objects.

CORALACE CONSTRUCTION

Coralace panels are digitally divided into printable fields with cell scale and density varied across the textile surface. The printed edges incorporate working seams that clip to adjoining panels, allowing efficient no-sew assembly while reinforcing the web-like continuity of the system.

Across these works, Coralace demonstrates our capacity to develop a soft-material sculptural system that is digitally generated, materially specific and structurally legible. Within Converging Tides: Form Follows Place, it supports the project’s middle chapters, where body-scale prototyping is used as an intermediate site for testing attachment, movement, density, translucency and formal translation between spatial thinking and sculptural resolution.

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