3D Printed Dress Moves Like the Real Deal

Techies and industry observers were stirred to excitement with the arrival of 3D printing technology, especially when it was proven that a more portable, personal option is indeed feasible.

In the past few years, a number of breakthroughs have been announced with the increased application of this revolutionary technology. Biological, human parts have been churned out of special 3D printers. Edible material and even weapons have been produced using such equipment. And now, it appears even clothing can also be created with such machines.

"The design studio Nervous System has created a novel process that allows a 3-D printed dress to move and sway like real fabric," CNN reported. "The bespoke software behind it, called Kinematics, combines origami techniques with novel approaches to 3-D printing, pushing the technology's limits."

This innovative step may probably draw more attention from the movers and shakers in the world of fashion, paving the way to a new breed of apparel.

"Instead of pinning fabric to a dress form, a Kinematics garment starts as a 3-D model in a CAD program," the news source explained. "Kinematics breaks the model down into tessellated, triangular segments of varying sizes."

"Designers can control the size, placement, and quantity of the triangles in a Javascript-based design tool and preview how the changes will impact the polygonal pinafore," CNN continued. "Once the designer is satisfied, algorithms add hinges to the triangles uniting the garment into a single piece and compress the design into the smallest possible shape to optimise the printing process, often reducing the volume by 85 percent."

Nervous System's creative director, Jessica Rosenkrantz, as well as the firm's chief science officer Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, designed the dress, which was made up of "an intricately patterned structure of 2,279 unique triangular panels interconnected by 3,316 hinges, all 3D printed as a single piece in nylon," as noted by Boingboing.net. "While each component is rigid, in aggregate, they behave as a continuous fabric allowing the dress to flexibly conform and fluidly flow in response to body movement."

The piece, which took 44 hours to create, has since been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

This is not the first time that 3D printing technology produced fashion. However, unlike most of those items, the Kinematic dress did not need assembly. The others were "usually constructed of separately-printed parts," according to Mashable.

Last year, burlesque artist Dita Von Teese wore "the world's first fully articulated dress produced with a printer," according to The Huffington Post UK.

Designed by Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti, the dress was "assembled from 17 pieces, dyed black, lacquered and adorned with over 13,000 Swarovski crystals to create a sensual flowing form." The garment was based on the Fibonacci number sequence and was made in collaboration with Shapeways, which also helped Nervous System create the flowy 3D dress.

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