Fashion's new buzz words—3D printing, wearable technology

07 Aug '13

2 min read

At a time in history clothes were merely meant to cover the body, but as people started developing a sense of fashion, they started recreating their apparels to give them a more fashionable and stylish look.

Taking this concept ahead, technological advancements have now started playing a major part in the fashion industry, and 3D printing and wearable technology have become the buzz words in present-day fashion industry.

3D printing is an additive manufacturing technique which allows creation of three dimensional objects by laying down successive layers of material. Initially, this was only used to produce design objects, but now fashion designers have started using the technique for creating 3D apparels and accessories.

One of the recent examples where designers have used 3D technique in their creations is the 3D printed dress created by New York-based designer Michael Schmidt. The black lacquer floor-length nylon gown has been made using selective laser sintering (SLS) where material is built up in layers from plastic power that has been fused together. Around 12,000 Swarovski crystals have been embellished on the dress using the 3D technique.

Fashion designer Francis Bitonti, along with designer Katie Gallagher, has developed apparels that change patterns as they move across the body, facilitating creation of an atmosphere allowing the body’s silhouette dissolved into its surroundings.

British designer Stephen Jones has also recently presented a 3D printed hat.

3D printing technique comes with several benefits over traditional manufacturing like low manufacturing cost, lesser involvement of workforce, reduced raw material wastage and energy consumption, and above all it extends unlimited creativity to designers.

Talking about wearable technology, it refers to apparels incorporating technology in their design like garments incorporating music players and smartphones, or sportswear incorporating sensors to track the performance of an athlete.

For instance, London-based Cutecircuit last year presented the very first wearable, sharable and programmable t-shirt, prepared in collaboration with Ballantine’s.

The t-shirt called tshirtOS looks like a simple grey t-shirt but has significant features that allow the wearer to share his/her Facebook Status, Tweets, favourite songs and pictures.

This t-shirt is controlled through a mobile App and even includes a built-in micro-camera, microphone, accelerometer and speakers.

Besides, several fashion designers and brands including Jennifer Darmour, Linda Franco, Machina and Helen Storey, have created soft circuit integrated clothing that responds to the gesture and movement of the wearer.

The Midi Controller Jacket developed by Machina allows musicians to control and create music through sensors and body movements.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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