2026 Bridges Conference Math + Fashion
Gabriela Bourla
Designers
Gabriela Bourla
Graduate Student of Mathematics
Combinatorics and Optimization Department, University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Biography
Gabriela Bourla is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo in the Combinatorics and Optimization department, and she focuses her research on graph theory. In the past few years, she has been crocheting wearable pieces in her spare time. She has enjoyed combining her love of math and fiber arts by crocheting the graphs that she studies.
Looks
Circulant skirt on model
Model: Gabriela Bourla, Photographer: Massimo Vicenzo
Circulant skirt with represented graph
Model: Gabriela Bourla, Photographer: Massimo Vicenzo
Circulant skirt laid out
Photographer: Gabriela Bourla
About the look
Crocheted Circulant Skirt
Acrylic Yarn
2026
The circulant graph is a graph on n vertices with parameters i and j. It can be pictured by drawing the n vertices in a circle, and for each vertex, draw an edge to the vertex that is i spots to the left of it and another to the vertex i spots to the right of it as well as edges to the vertices j spots to the left and j spots to the right. This means that there are 4 edges incident to each vertex, making the graph 4-regular. In my current research, I am studying the circulant graphs and observing which have large or small Martin invariant and Hepp bound.
As I am often working with these graphs, I wanted to make a tangible depiction of them. This piece is a crocheted skirt that represents the circulant graph on 7 vertices with parameters i = 1 and j = 3. The buttons of the skirt represent the vertices of the graph, and the edges of the graph are crocheted in light pink. The second image provided includes a drawing of the graph. Almost all of the skirt was crocheted using the V-stitch, which makes the rows look like zigzags. This was chosen since the circulant graph with parameters i = 1 and j = 2 can be drawn in this zigzag manner.