The secret of 3D printing clothing: always feels wearing a "fake dress"

Industry media BackChannel published an article on the status quo of 3D printed clothing. According to the author, fashion dreamers are using 3D printing to make fabrics that are almost impossible for normal people to wear. The following is the original content:

When the 3D printed costume of the threeASFOUR team made its debut, the model wearing the robes looked like an "angel robot". One of the clothes was made of white foam, and the model looked like it had just come out of the bubble bath.

These models can't sit down, or the clothes will break. Bradley Rothenberg, who teamed up with the threeASFOUR team to launch these 3D costumes, said, "Models hate us."

It was 2013. But the original goal of the threeASFOUR team was not to make such a fragile dress. Gabi Asfour, the team leader, wanted to invent the fabric that superheroes wore: bulletproof, fireproof, pressure resistant, heat resistant or cold resistant.

For now, compared to emerging methods such as 3D printing, the traditional weaving and sewing industry has accumulated thousands of years of experience to create more durable and efficient clothing. However, this did not prevent threeASFOUR and other entrepreneurial designers from continuing to explore emerging approaches.

Since 2009, Asford has been curious about 3D printing.

Traditional fabrics are basically two-dimensional - horizontally arranged, vertically aligned, and crossed. Asfour, who holds a degree in mechanical engineering and architecture from the University of Maryland, wants to invent "3D interlocking weaving," and his partners are planning to implement this vision with the help of laser cutting. Naturally, they were later attracted to 3D printing.

Asford says that most of the previous fabrics can be stretched on the X and Y planes. He believes that 3D printing will allow the material to stretch in the Z-plane, making the fabric more breathable and making movement easier. Most importantly, there are no wrinkles on the fabric.

Asfu and collaborators began exploring 3D printing information, and eventually they started working with 3D printing companies Materialize and Ron Berg. Ron Berger designed the 3D printed angel wings in Victoria's Secret 2013 fashion show.

But things are much harder than you think.

The main problem is that 3D printed materials are much harder than fabrics for general clothing. No matter how the internal geometry of the various materials is changed to add more tensile force, they are easily broken. "Practicality is a big problem," Asford said.

However, with the gradual improvement of materials, threeASFOUR teamed up with 3D printing company Stratasys and designer Travis Fitch to launch the "2016 Fall Bio Simulation Series" fashion. One of them was called "Pangolin", which took 500 hours to print, and 10 printers were started at the same time, and then assembled. Pangolin is the only mammal with scales. The model wearing a pangolin dress is like a contemporary priestess: a dark and feminine armor. To create a pangolin's scale, the designers used an algorithm that mimics cell division.

Another piece of clothing in this bio-simulation series is called Harmonicgraph, which is modeled after the geometry of sound waves. It is made of rubber and can be stretched and shrunk, just like a memory foam mattress. Its lattice compresses when it sits down and bounces back when it stands.

With this flexibility, people wearing this 3D printed outfit can now sit down, but the feeling of wearing clothes is still far from pleasant. "They look like fake leather," Ronberg said. Although this is not a bad thing in itself, it is "very uncomfortable and will stick to you."

3D printing clothing opportunities

People's attention to 3D printing has once appeared at its peak, when it became popular for the first time among teenagers in their 20s, so the idea of ​​"printing clothes at home" seems to be a matter of course. However, like many other popular technologies, 3D printing apparel is not on the right track.

Aaron Rowley is deeply touched by the fact that he co-founded Electroroom, a 3D printing apparel startup, in 2013. At first the company was highly regarded by large fashion brands, but as these brands quit one by one, their hopes faded. When I first founded the company, 3D printing looked bright. "Some people think that people would want to print a spare hammer at home," Raleigh said. "But fundamentally, the process of making fabrics and making a hard product. It is totally different."

Electroloom was closed in October last year.

Scott Hudson, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, worked with Disney to develop 3D printed soft materials. He said: "Textiles are very mature technologies." It is not an exaggeration to call textiles technology. Because the loom is usually considered an early version of the computer. In the mid-seventeenth century, Joseph Marie Jacquard found a way to place a fabric design on a perforated card, which would set the pattern for the loom and automate the patterning.

3D printing did not achieve the same level of improvement. Because 3D printers print objects by depositing a layer of molten plastic on the next layer, the fusion between the layers is completely different from the way the fibers become fabric.

Before the material problem was solved, 3D printed clothing still looked like an art project, not a real industry. The works of ThreeASFOUR have indeed participated in various exhibitions and events.

In areas such as jewelry and sportswear, 3D printing seems to have achieved greater success. Nike and Adidas are using 3D printing technology to make high-performance liners and soles, which are usually made of foam with uniform stiffness. The "Pangolin" robes seemed to be a good fit for NASA's project: a 3D printed chain armor material designed to protect astronauts from natural elements.

Maybe not only astronauts need them. Although the average shirt and trousers will still be made in the traditional way, the protective armor will soon be able to print at home. In the unlikely event of a zombie or alien invasion, they can come in handy.