editing

Maha Alharbi

ART 554p

3D Fashion

Imagine one day you can decide what you want to wear that day, download it, and printed with your phone, while you’r getting up of bed. This is the future of the 3D printer fashion. 3D Printing is one of the new technics that's interred the fashion world slowly. Some big well known brand are experimenting the new technology such as Nike and Adidas. However,  creative fashion designers are already showing their 3D design in their catwalk such as Nadir Gordon, Michael Schmidt, Francis Bitonti and  Iris Van Herpen.

The new fashion will be about softwares and more digital technologies. Fashion shouldn’t be the same way it was hundreds of years a go. It must be consistent with the current era. Everything in our lives are turning digital, so why not fashion. The main purpose of using technologies in our live is to make it easier. In 3D printing fashion there’s no more sewing; designers can implement their designs regardless of complexity.

My project process started with learning more about the 3D printing and how it works. I collaborate with a software engineer who knows more about 3D printing technology. She helped me to understand the process of printing and the options that was available. The decisions I made for my experimental project was determine by the time I had to complete generate two wearable pieces. Each printed piece was define by material, temperature, and speed.

I started sampling to figure out the right adjustment for my design. There ware three filament available at the technology lab for me to use PLA, ABS, and the glowing filament. At first I chose the glowing filament to print the design I chose. Since the 3D printer start printing layer by layer, it took an hour to get one piece. There were two reasons; the first one is because of the layers design thy were so complicated. The other reason is the type of filament; it need more time and higher temperature. For these reasons, I changed the layers design and size along with the type of filament. I switch to black PLA.

The first garment is a top that can be wear as complementary piece another garment. It is made of 62 3D printed teardrop shape piece that were attached together by rings and a chain. It took ten hours and a half to print the pieces and two hours to attach them together. The second garment is a lower waist piece that was made of 117 3D printed hexagonal shape pieces. The pieces were attached together also by rings and a chain. And it took thirteen hours and a half to print the pieces and five hours to attach them together.

3D printing is a manufacturing technology that have been used in many fields including medical, engineering, entertainment,..etc. However, the technology interred the fashion world in the most creative ways. By this astonishing technology designers can create the most complex design without sewing. my critique in this technology is to have more time to do more research to be able to use the software and of course more time for the printing. The cost of 3D printing is high unless you have your own 3D printer at home and have the knowledge to use the software.