Caroline Carrig is currently making waves in the fashion world – sound waves, to be precise. Unexpectedly, sound is a key element in the young designer's work. Taking her cue from French filmmaker Jacques Tati, her audio-driven fabrics are inspired by the sound of cinema.

Pale, shiny, tactile and structural in form, Caroline's garments are made from brand new fabrics she developed herself. Embossed PVC, bonded paper silk, bonded metallic organza - each hybrid material is the product of hours of experimentation using a heat press. The fabrics were conceived for the distinctive sound they make against the skin - the swish of latex, the shuffle of organza. Each piece was made without a sewing machine, relying on heat to bond seams together. The whole look has a retro space-age feel, sexy in its use of slick, icy tones.

Caroline's final collection at the Royal College of Art, where she has just completed an MA in textile design, includes a studio-recorded sound piece of her designs being worn, which viewers can listen to via (Tati-inspired) headphones whilst admiring the garments hanging like futuristic mobiles against the wall. Eye-catching items like the cape-like jacket, neatly pleated skirt, PVC leggings and boxy, metallic tunic become doubly intriguing when paired with audio recordings of the sounds they make. Complementing the clothes, there are graphic images based on sound waves, hybrid illustrations of architectural floor plans crossed with clothes patterns. Seeing the collection on display earlier this summer, I could see why she won the Timney de Villeneuve Award for Innovation 2008.

But where did this fascination with all things sonic begin? "A lot of the work I'd been doing before had been about shapes, and making images that aren't initially apparent," she explains to me over her strawberry milkshake. "Someone saw my work and said I had to see this film Mon Oncle by Jacques Tati, and everything appealed."

Captivated by Tati's playful manipulation of sound, Caroline designed her entire collection after seeing a scene in Mon Oncle (1958), "when Madame Arpel wears a green synthetic dress and walks in heels on her hard floor, dusting the house, and the audio of her garments and actions are really exaggerated". The architectural edge of her designs – see the "floor plan coat" and "floor plan skirt" – takes its cue from the exaggerated modernity in a later Tati film, Play Time (1967). 

So what's on the horizon now? Caroline has already been snapped up by London-based designer Emilio de la Morena. She'll be assisting him for the run-up to London Fashion week. Impressed by her portfolio, Spanish-born Emilio has assigned Caroline with her own small project. Although she can't divulge too much, she says it's mainly accessories, and is very textile-driven like her own work. "There's lots of bonding fabrics, fabric treatments, and creating new fabrics." She finds it exciting working at his studio as she loves his prints, colours and shapes.

As for her personal work, she's busy developing new ideas. The cinematic element will still be there, but this time she's interested in black and white versus colour. In the future, Caroline's dream would be to work for Marni, and also to set up her own label. But she insists she's "quite happy at the moment doing commission work for Emilio. It's fun and I'm learning a lot."