3D Printed Couture: The New Look of Fashion
When Continuum Fashion (continuumfashion.com) founder and designer Mary Huang first saw a sample of a textile-like material generated using a 3D printer, her initial idea was to print a version of a dress that she’d been working on since college. Upon finding out the size of the printing boundary in a standard 3D printer, and given that just a single yard of fabric is 1,620-in.2 (36 x 45), and it takes more than a single yard to make a dress, the New York resident had to rethink her plan and come up with a design that required much less printer space, and a lot less material. She decided to go with the ultimate barely there article of clothing: the bikini.
In the fall of 2010, Huang joined friend and 3D modeling expert Jenna Fizel, to come up with a circle-packing algorithm using Rhino 3D CAD software (rhino3d.com) for what they dubbed the “world’s first ready-to-wear article of completely 3D printed clothing,” also known as the “N12 bikini.” N12 got its name from what it is made of: N12 got its name from what it is made of: Nylon 12, a flexible, nylon-based plastic that is processed through selective laser sintering 3D printing (i.e., a computer-controlled laser is focused on an area to melt the plastic into the design of choice–in this case, the pattern of small interconnected circles that form the swimwear).
“One of our concepts with Continuum is that when we design a product, we design the process and not necessarily the item,” Huang says. A year after the idea for the bikini came to light, and the code for fabricating the bikini had been written, the designers took the N12 to Shapeways (shapeways.com), the 3D printing company that originally introduced Huang to the idea of printed fabric about a year earlier. With the files sent and the collaboration in place, an N12 prototype was printed.
The bikini—which the designers say is very comfortable, especially when wet—is custom-printed in separate pieces. The top is composed of four parts that hook together, and the bottom, which comes in two different styles, is lined to enhance its comfort. The bikini is printed in either black or white. Huang explains that the surface of the N12 has the feel of a sand dollar and adds: “Because it’s plastic, it offers really good support, much better than Lycra or spandex. And it doesn’t cling when it gets wet.”
Unfortunately, innovation doesn’t come cheap (even when there’s less material involved). The N12 bikini is now available for purchase on the Shapeways and Continuum websites. The top costs between $250 and $300; and based on the style chosen for the bottom, it will set a beachgoer back another $200 to $350. Huang says she realizes the price of the N12 might scare away some potential shoppers, but she and Fizel never expected their first product to even reach the market, let alone sell. “We anticipated doing this one, and then doing more that are better,” she says.
It All Started With a Little Black Dress
Continuum Fashion has been around longer than the N12 bikini, but not much longer. Huang—who says her catchphrase is “Reinventing design for the digital age”—came up with the idea for the site while working on her thesis at the Copenhagen Institute of Interactive Design (CIID). The self-described artist, futurist and robot aficionado says she believes that fashion should not only be customizable, but also interactive.
To support this theory, Huang developed interactive software she called “D.dress” while attending CIID. The D in the name stands for “Delaunay triangulation,” an algorithm that constructs the dress with the addition or subtraction of triangles. D.dress gives legitimate and wannabe fashionistas the tools they need to design a dress in less than a minute using only their computer, imagination, and a bunch of triangles—no formal training or design experience necessary. D.dress, which is still in the prototype phase, but available for experimentation on the Continuum website, allows users to design the dress of their choice, create a 3D model, and download the pattern (at no cost) to have the dress made based on their size and measurements. Huang says she would eventually like to make the manufacturing of the couture dresses available on the website, but for now, the time-constraints and costs associated with custom tailoring would simply be too great.
That’s why Huang’s interest was piqued when Shapeways mentioned 3D printed fashion. The dress was simply too big for the constraints of the printer. Still, she says she’s not giving up on the idea: “My ideal scenario would be to see 3D printing get even better so we could print the whole dress. We’d take the triangulated D.dress pattern and have it 3D printed with the zipper so you wouldn’t have to sew at all.”
What’s Next?
Huang admits that both the D.dress and N12 could use some fine-tuning, but before completing those projects, she and Fizel (who each have multiple side projects) would like to branch out and explore computerized knitting and custom shoe design. Huang explains: “For us personally, we’re interested in where the design and the whole custom fit and the technology can seamlessly come together. So if we do shoes where you can scan your foot, it’s not just about getting a regular shoe custom tailored and made…it’s also about how you can push the design further.” Keep pushing, Continuum. That 3D printed dress is right around the corner.
