Let's continue the technology thread (pun intended...) that started yesterday with a focus on 3D printing on fabrics. In the previous post we looked at two projects by Yuchen Zhang about textiles and conductive threads, but the designer and educator also developed experiments with 3D printed fabric.
After several trial and errors, Zhang realised the best way to succeed in this case is not printing directly on a mesh fabric, but sandwiching the fabric between the PLA filament. In this way the 3D printed material is safely anchored to the fabric that assumes more structure while retaining its flexibility.
The main problem with 3D printed garments is indeed the fact that up until a few years ago they were entirely 3D printed and therefore they were conceived as sculptures rather than dresses, or were assembled with fabrics after the 3D elements were printed.
In 2019 threeASFOUR worked with Stratasys, the global leader in 3D printing and additive solutions (a company very interested in these fashion and technology collaborations also thanks to the Creative Director of its Art, Design and Fashion department, Naomi Kaempfer) and with designer Travis Fitch and, using high-end printers, they created designs inspired by the iridescent and microscopic colours that the light generates when filtered through fragile butterfly and insect wings and by their movement and geometrical patterns.
In this case Stratasys developed 3D printed lenticular lens, small translucent photopolymer domes or cells with a strip of colour inside that bounces light through the lens, so that looking from different angles allows you to see different colours.
The tiny domes engineered by Stratasys were then printed on pieces of polyester fabric that were employed to create threeASFOUR's dresses made up of 27 parts and thousands of these 3D printed cells (3D printed using Stratasys' multi-color and multi-material J750 PolyJet machine).
As you may remember from a previous post, the designs were showcased as part of threeASFOUR's S/S 20 collection and were characterised by unique colour combinations and striking luminosity. In this case 3D printing directly onto textiles allowed the designers to achieve a new functionality and perfectly reproduce the insects' camouflage skills.
Printing directly onto fabrics has different benefits since it allows to create new forms of embroidery, machine-made rather than hand-made, but equally intriguing and striking for what regards colours and configurations.
Displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s "Designs for Different Futures" exhibit that then travelled at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, threeASFOUR's designs were part of Stratasys' "Chro-Morpho" collection, that also includes Julia Koerner's "Setae" jacket (2019).
Koerner, founder of JK Design GmbH, is better known for making the costumes for Ryan Coogler's "Black Panther" (2018) with Ruth E. Carter using 3D printing and for collaborating with Iris Van Herpen on the "Voltage" collection.
Produced on a Stratasys J850 3D Printer using Vero Multi-Material, Koerner's "Setae" jacket was inspired by the Madagascar Sunset Butterfly. This is a perfect example of a biomimicry design based on 2D macro scans of butterfly wings digitized into an algorithm and translated into 3D patterns.
The photographs were divided into thousands of thin pixels that mapped out the butterfly wings and colors. The butterfly pattern was then replicated into 3D-printed strands on flexible fabric.
One of the most recent applications of 3D printing on textiles came courtesy of Ganit Goldstein. The Israeli designer spent a period in Japan and, after her studies and researches into ikat weaving there, she created a collection entitled "WeAreAble".
The pieces included in the collection call to mind for what regards their colours traditional Japanese textiles while their shapes points at kimonos, but Goldstein added a high-tech twist to them keeping firmly in mind the concept of sustainability.
Goldstein teamed up with Stratasys that 3D printed directly on textiles a series of multi-coloured motifs using PolyJet Technology, the final shimmering effect was added thanks to VeroClear transparent.
Once the textile was 3D printed, Goldstein took measures with a body scanner (by Haratech) and crafted precise pieces without wasting any fabric; the collection focuses indeed on a sustainable approach using 3D printing without any support or waste materials.
Goldstein showcased the pieces last year with a Virtual Reality fashion exhibition (made in collaboration with her brother Yoav Goldstein, a senior computer vision and game developer at Intel Corporation): the garments, made using 100% recycled filament and fabric made from ocean waste yarn production, are conceived by the designer as an alternative to fast fashion and the relentless rhythms of the industry. According to the young designer, this could be an eco-friendly system that allows creative minds to personalise garments and focus on developing fewer and bespoke pieces.
It is exciting to see that 3D printing technologies have been progressing quickly, going from strength to strength. One area that has been developed a lot regards the colours available for 3D printed pieces: the Voxel print illusory technology allows for example to design everyday objects with complex distribution of colours and therefore unusual and unique nuances. Developed for designers, this technology allows users to define a colour for each dot (or voxel, a three-dimensional version of the pixel) and to come up with strikingly sophisticated visual effects very similar to those ones that so far have only existed in the digital world.
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