3D Printed Fashion: The State of the Art

3D printed fashion includes everything that’s wearable and 3D printed, from dresses and shoes to accessories.

Although we won’t be seeing 3D printed fashion in our local clothing stores just yet, 3D printing has brought a fresh wave of innovation to runway shows and has great potential as a new mass-customization solution.

Today’s 3D printing technologies are advanced enough to easily produce shoe soles and jewelry, but it’s still a relatively challenging process to 3D print a dress or a jacket.

Garments present one of the biggest challenges for designers to overcome, given that they need to be very flexible. For the most part, 3D printing is used for producing non-flexible parts. That’s why 3D printing fashion is a very expensive process still reserved for runway shows.

Today, most 3D printed garments are typically built using mesh systems, which are individually 3D printed and later assembled.

Despite all of the challenges that come with 3D printed fashion, designers alongside engineers have managed to overcome many in order to produce some of their wildest designs. We’ll take a look at a few in this article.

Apparel

Garment — the most challenging sector of 3D printed fashion.

Because it’s soft and “moves around”, it has always been a challenge for designers to 3D print flexible clothing. 3D printing is mostly used for the production of rigid, non-flexible parts.

That’s where clever mesh designs and other innovations come in.

Although 3D printed apparel is still mostly reserved for runway shows, there are some promising projects. Thanks to them, 3D printed apparel is getting closer and closer to local retail stores. The following are some of the most impressive projects to date.

Back in 2015, Danit Peleg introduced her first ever fashion collection, Liberty Leading The People, which was also her graduation project at the Shankar College of Design.

What’s so special about Peleg’s 3D printed clothing is that she made it all at home, on a 3D printer that fits on most desks. Apart from that, the fact that she had no previous experience in 3D printing makes this project even more impressive.

Most fashion items from the Liberty Leading The People collection were assembled from multiple 3D printed parts. Using the mesh design on the dress, the designer achieved the desired flexibility and drew quite a bit of attention on the runway.

Since the introduction of her first 3D printed clothes collection, Peleg created another impressive collection, The Birth Of Venus.

Peleg’s ultimate goal is to make 3D printed fashion more accessible. In other words, she wants to take it off the runway. To achieve that, she introduced the first 3D printed garment available for purchase. It’s a jacket and sells on her website for $1500.

The 3D printed jacket is limited to only 100 pieces due to the 3D printer’s capacity and work speed, but it’s a perfect example of how 3D printing could become a mass customization solution.

The Pangolin 3D printed dress uses a nano-enhanced elastomer 3D printing material, which gives it both flexibility and durability. It was created in collaboration between threeASFOUR, Stratasys, and architect Travis Fitch.

The dress was printed on 10 printers and took 500 hours to complete. After printing, all the “chain-like” parts were connected together to form the dress. The creators claim that each unit of the dress functions by itself in order to produce a 3D effect while moving.

In 2016, Ministry of Supply introduced a 3D printed jacket, which at a price of $250, sold out incredibly fast.

Because the jacket is 3D printed, there are no seams, which makes it a very comfortable garment. And despite the lack of seams, the garment still features articulated joints for the purpose of following your body’s contours.

The jacket was made on a 3D robotic knitting machine, a process which saves material over traditional knitting. It’s thought that 15–30% of the material gets wasted with conventional methods.

Thanks to 3D modeling, the jacket can be perfectly suited to each individual. Pair that with no seams, and you’ve got a winning combo!

The jewelry and accessory industries continue to be revolutionized by 3D printing. The technology has been utilized in the production of various items, from handbags and watches to rings.

Mass customization is in general a rising trend in the world of jewelry and accessories. If you’ve ever wanted to design your own handbag or sunglasses, the time to do so is now.

When it comes to jewelry, 3D printing makes it easy to construct molds for rings, bracelets, and pendants.

Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting 3D printed projects.

Every day, more and more jewelers are using 3D printing in the production of rings, bracelets, necklaces, and similar products.

What you see above is a sterling silver bracelet mimicking patterns found in nature. The producer, Nervous System, first 3D printed the model in wax and then cast it in sterling silver.

Metal 3D printing is a perfect technology for watchmakers, both for prototyping and production of end-use pieces.

The Lo Scienziato timepiece from Panerai features a fully 3D printed titanium housing made through direct metal laser sintering (DMLS).

If you’d like to see a Panerai on your wrist, you’ll need to spend a whopping $170,000. This is a good example of just how exclusive and rare 3D printed fashion accessories can be.

Big players in the footwear industry have been developing solutions for mass customization for years. 3D printing not only enables these companies to prototype much faster, it’s also a great solution for mass customization.

Companies diving into the arena include Adidas and New Balance, who are starting to 3D print midsoles. Nike, in the meantime, is experimenting with 3D printed “uppers”.

The future for 3D printed footwear looks exciting. Whether athlete or fashionista, anyone could soon have perfectly-fitted shoes thanks to 3D printing.

Here are two examples of 3D printed footwear to give you a taste of what’s on the horizon.