Tees aiming to tease

If re-inventing the wheel sounds difficult, try reinventing the T-shirt. That's the task Ebru Ercon set herself with her MA show in 2000.

'Each model wore a T-shirt that had been turned into a couture dress and carried a bag with speakers inside them,' says the 28-year-old St Martins graduate. 'Making music from accessories forced people to pay attention to the details.'

There's nothing easy about Ebru's work. Her follow-up collection was exhibited at the ICA (this time hiding spy cameras in each outfit and projecting the images on to screens) and, for Spring/Summer 2004, her second off-schedule show continues her fascination with garment construction.

Inspiration

'I looked to 1930s designer Jean Patteu, one of the originators of sportswear, for inspiration,' she says. 'Imagine how weird it would have been for ladies used to wearing corsets to be able to go swimming for the first time. He was a bloody genius!'

Putting form before function, each piece morphs into another so that polo shirts turn into drop-waist tennis dresses, swimsuits into evening gowns and socks into wedge shoes.

Orange and turquoise shine out from a monotone palette, highlighted by floral devorè on playsuits and dogtooth on flared hemlines. And, so as not to ruin the prominent shoulder pads, every handbag essential - lipstick, lighter, diary - swings from its own individual pouch.

'That was a comment on ladylike dressing,' says Ebru. 'My mates have key chains instead of handbags so I thought I'd take everything out of the bag and expose it.'

Currently selling in London, Hong Kong and Japan, Ebru's future looks bright. 'Next season, I want to clarify my ideas and make them more wearable,' she says. 'I want women to have my pieces in their wardrobe for years because they just can't throw them away.'