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Julia Körner’s 3D-Printed Setae Jacket Inspired by Butterfly Wings

The delicate wings of a butterfly have inspired a great deal of 3D-printed innovations, such as stronger structures for electronics and ultra lightweight geometries for better load bending, unique artwork, and even fashion. Pioneering 3D-printed fashion designer, architect, adjunct professor at UCLA, and, most recently, 3D-printed costume designer, Julia Körner has long used the technology in her work. Now, she has turned to 3D printing once again for the design of her eye-catching Setae Jacket, which was, as you may have guessed, inspired by butterfly wings.

“Julia Koerner is an award-winning Austrian designer working at the convergence of architecture, product and fashion design. She is internationally recognised for design innovation in 3D-Printing, Julia’s work stands out at the top of these disciplines,” her website states. “The constantly intriguing aspect of Julia’s work is its embodiment of a beautiful organic aesthetic.”

She was one of 15 designers chosen by non-profit organization Austrianfashion.net to show her work—the 3D printed Setae jacket—at its recent Virtual Design Festival (VDF). The organization is a platform that is focused on promoting contemporary Austrian fashion designers and partnered with VDF to exhibit innovative fashion designs and accessories by designers who were either born, or are currently based, in Austria, and also produce their work locally and sustainably.

Austrianfashion.net said, “[Körner’s] work on the future of 3D, as well as on its current applications, can be seen as revolutionary practice. Strongly believing that the future of fashion is 3D, Körner is making sure she is at the forefront of the revolution.”

Her beautiful, 3D-printed Setae Jacket is part of the 3D printed Chro-Morpho fashion design collection by Stratasys, which we’ve discussed here before, and was also inspired by colorful butterfly wings. The collection is meant to show how technology and textiles can work together, and even create commercially viable pieces of clothing. The jacket was 3D printed out of flexible Vero material on one of the company’s multimaterial printers, either the J750 or the J850, and every bristle resembles setae, which is a stiff structure akin to a hair or a bristle.

“The research explores digital setae pattern design and multi-color 3D printing on fabric, inspired by microscopic butterfly wing patterns. Butterfly wings are made up of membranes which are covered by thousands of colorful scales and hairs, plate-like setae,” Körner’s website states.

She used photographs of Madagascan Sunset Butterfly wings, and the setae on the wings were actually digitized into an algorithm, “which translates the color pixels into 3D bristle patterns which correspond to the form of the garment design.”

“The digital designs are 3D printed in an innovative way, without any support material and directly on fabric,” the site continues. “The relation between the colourful rigid setae and the flexible fabric create enigmatic visual effects when the garment is in motion.”

To form the jacket, the bristles were 3D printed on denim. When the garment is worn, the setae move along with the person, which is a really interesting effect.

“Due to the movement and delicate color transformation, it expresses a true organic animal flow that comes to life,” Stratasys states.

Do I spy a zipper?

It is definitely a unique piece, and while lack of comfort and wearability is always one of my biggest critiques when it comes to 3D-printed fashion, the Setae Jacket absolutely looks wearable to me.

What do you think? Discuss this story and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the comments below.

(Source: Dezeen / Image Credits: Ger Ger 2019)

The post Julia Körner’s 3D-Printed Setae Jacket Inspired by Butterfly Wings appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

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Anouk Wipprecht’s 3D-Printed Proximity Dresses Are Perfect for Social Distancing

If you don’t remember the stunning and technical work from Anouk Wipprecht—the Dutch fashion design working on “rethinking fashion in the age of digitalization” by combining engineering, fashion, robotics, science, and interaction/user experience in an emerging field known as FashionTech—let me refresh your memory. Noting that fashion lacks microcontrollers—something I never would have thought about—Wipprecht is an amazingly unique designer, who wants her clothing to, according to her website, “facilitate and augment the interactions we have with ourselves and our surroundings.”

“In a future where electronics are predicted to be embedded in everyday objects, – what kind of clothes will we wear? Will future techno fashion be purely aesthetic – or will it expand our awareness, acting like an intelligent second skin? Will we become super sensory, physically aware of data flows, communicating our internal states through the garments we wear? And, most pertinently perhaps, how will we socialize in our world when we are supervised by technology?”

Anouk Wipprecht’s Smoke Dress

Back in 2014, Wipprecht launched a campaign to create the first crowdsourced 3D-printed dress, and followed this up with her Synapse Dress, partnering with Materialise, Niccolo Casas, and Intel to create a wearable that leverages the wearer’s own electrical currents for a fully immersive experience. The designer later combined 3D printing with virtual reality to create a collection of dresses for Audi, and worked with model and musician Viktoria Modesta to fabricate 3D-printed prosthetics for musical performance.

Now, the high-tech futurist designer is back with two new 3D-printed wearables that could be very useful in this time of social distancing, due to the continuing COVID-19 crisis: the Proximity Dresses, Robotic Personal Space Defenders.

“Extending my research into proxemics and the body, I have fabricated two new dresses that create physical barriers when a person is detected in the immediate surroundings of the wearer,” Wipprecht said. “These twin dresses respond based on proximity and thermal sensors and indicates strangers within the intimate, personal, social and public space around the wearer.”

As with Wipprecht’s Smoke Dress and 3D-printed, robotic Spider Dress, which literally moves itself into an attack position if the embedded proximity biosensors detect that the wearer is uncomfortable, the design for these new dresses is based on Edward T. Hall’s Proxemics Theory. She explains that the theory defines “four spaces around the body,” each of which has its “own characteristic distances.”

Anouk Wipprecht’s 3D-Printed Spider Dress

“Whereas Hall had to measure the space between people using a wooden stick, I have been working since 2007 to translate these concepts into the digital domain, in order to measure the spaces between people up to a range of 25 feet,” she explained.

The Proximity Dresses use robotic, nylon 3D-printed hip mechanisms to extend when necessary. Additionally, they feature a transparent collar, 3D printed from clear resin, with some fancy sensors that offer noise-free distance readings.

Anouk Wipprecht’s Proximity Dress

These sensors use “high-output acoustic power combined with continuously variable gain, real-time background automatic calibration, real-time waveform signature analysis, and noise rejection algorithms. This holds true even in the presence of various acoustic or electrical noise sources, making it suitable for on-body use.”

By using the sensors, Wipprecht’s unique designs can invisibly trace their surroundings. Additionally, since the sensors don’t record any images or video, the dresses are not a threat to privacy, as nearby people remain anonymous.

“The Proximity Dress 2.0 is based on my 2012 prototype of this dress using hip mechanics create distance and a proximity sensor (ultrasonic rangefinder) for VW showcase during IAA, in Germany,” she concludes.

Check out the video below to see Wipprecht discuss her innovative, defensive Proximity Dress with Hyphen-Hub:

Discuss this story and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

The post Anouk Wipprecht’s 3D-Printed Proximity Dresses Are Perfect for Social Distancing appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

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Why 3D Printing Needs to be in the Modern Fashion Designer’s Skillset

The world of 3D printing is constantly evolving. Historically its primary use has been in engineering, but it is now poised to revolutionise the fashion industry, changing how we produce anything and everything wearable such as shoes, dresses and accessories. While 3D printing isn’t ubiquitous in high street stores just yet, the inclusion of it in recent runway shows is proving its worth for designers and its exciting potential in fashion.

The fashion industry has historically been slow to adopt the latest technology, but recent years have been characterised by a digital revolution. From e-commerce stores to IoT and wearables, the use of technology in fashion is widespread, and will only increase with time. Just as those emerging technologies have started to change the industry, 3D printing is poised to do the same.

Why 3D fashion?

3D printing is starting to broaden the traditional boundaries of design and allow designers to quickly turn some of their most testing design concepts into reality. It allows designers to create completely new designs that were simply too complex, challenging or time consuming using traditional techniques. Now that 3D printing is easily accessible, we’re starting to see more original 3D designs infiltrate the runway.

For example, Iris Van Herpen incorporated 3D printed ‘face jewellery’ into her catwalk look at the 2019 Paris Fashion Week. This original, customisable content is something that 3D printing allows to be easily designed and created not just only on a small scale, but also en-masse. This level of originality is unprecedented and is one that a designer would struggle to achieve without 3D printing technology, enabling Van Herpen to design the jewellery that was truly unique to the wearer and customised to fit their face perfectly.

“Cellchemy” facemask by Iris Van Herpen.

Van Herpen has also used 3D printing in a lot of her high-profile fashion pieces, to bring her couture visions to life. Her first 3D printed design featured in 2010 and since then she has taken the fashion world by storm with her bespoke, original designs. In 2017, Cara Delevingne wore a stunning bespoke 3D printed dress to the premier of Valerian and the city of a Thousand Planets. Continuing her star-studded client list, she also designed a dramatic 3D printed dress for Beyoncé in her music video ‘Mine’.

Fashion has also dominated the runway at New York Fashion Week on numerous occasions but notably in 2016. threeASFOUR and Travis Fitch worked harmoniously to produce two breakthrough, truly unique dresses, highlighting the originality that 3D printing can help a designer achieve. Following the walk, Gabi Asfour from threeASFOUR credited the functionality that 3D printing provided to enable them to design and make a new textile that didn’t already exist to work with all the desired features of the dress. Something that may not have been possible within the original boundaries of design.

3D printed Harmonograph Dress [Image: Matt Carasella]

3D printing in mass fashion

While 3D printing is helping high push the boundaries of design in end fashion, everyday garments are starting to be feel its influence. Consumers today are always looking for the latest technologies and design techniques in their clothes, and brands are beginning to respond.

The footwear giants, Adidas and Nike have both in recent years incorporated 3D printing into their trainers and demonstrated that 3D printing can offer consumers improved customisation and more sustainable products.

Eliud Kipchoge winning the 2018 London Marathon wearing 3D printed Nike trainers.

3D printing has firmly found its place in marathon running by being the 2018 winning shoe of runner Eliud Kipchoge. Following a disaster in 2017 where his shoes became wet and heavy, Nike turned to 3D printing to reduce the weight of his trainers and personalise them bespoke for his needs. This was not the first time Nike has used 3D printing to provide personalised trainers for elite long-distance runners, created differently to suit their specific needs. This level of personalisation is on a case-by-case basis, but Adidas has found a way of bringing 3D printing to the mass market.

Quick customisation whilst maintaining originality are two more huge opportunities for 3D printing. Garments can be created to perfectly fit the size of each individual body, opening the door for true personalisation. Adidas has implemented the use of customisation into their Futurecraft designs by making a 4D trainer with a 3D printed midsole, this allows a high level of customisation to reach the mass market easily.

As this is a relatively new field, the fashion industry as a whole needs to challenge what they already know and visualise a future with 3D printing in order to see its true value. The incorporation of 3D technology into these designs make them truly original and gives the consumer the high-quality item they desire.

Although the cost of the production may be initially higher, shipping, transport and packaging costs are drastically reduced as a customer can be sent the design and can then print the product themselves.

Education

3D Printing is the future of fashion, enabling enhanced originality to be implemented into all aspiring designer’s skillset. Education and technological advancements are making it cheaper, easier and more beneficial for designers to use 3D fashion in their designs and in turn, produce more quality fashion and make it accessible to all.

As a result, many fashion academies are incorporating 3D printing into their education programmes. Manchester Met University has integrated 3D printing into their education programmes and have successfully produced a 3D knitted structure that is high in both stretch and elasticity.  By integrating 3D printing into their education programme, it can be at the forefront of a modern designer’s mind when they are working professionally.

While educating a new generation of designers on 3D printing will be a gradual process, it paves the way for this technology to become part of the mainstream and increase its uptake and use across the industry.

The future of 3D printing in fashion is one that is certainly bright and optimistic, with smaller, user-friendly 3D printers such as the da Vinci nano available to all, the opportunity to learn about the technology isn’t limited to engineers or more technical professions. By allowing even the smallest fashion houses to try this technology, we’ll see more and more 3D printed fashion coming to our stores – and I look forward to seeing how it benefits us all.