3D-Printed Dress by Nervous System

3D printed dress by Nervous Systems

3d printing is setting new horizons in the technological development these days. It is a new era of lifestyle where people would get anything they desire, from a pin to a 3D printed dress hence with the time this sensational application of technology will make us equipped with the option of materializing our dreams. Henceforth, every field of life will need it as badly as a person needs oxygen to survive the trends of the market. Nowadays 3D printers are used commercially and domestically to print different useful objects.

While I am a fashion designer, nothing can amaze me more than to know I can design my own dress through a computer application with full customization. Within few minutes I can design whatever my imagination tells me to and I can likewise modify when I feel like, in few clicks. But the thing that fascinates most is the 3D printed dress which has created a buzz in fashion.
This 3D printed dress was fabricated and designed by Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, they are MIT alumnus and cofounders of The Nervous system.

Nervous System releases online design applications that lets customers to co-create products in an effort to make design more accessible. As 3D printer fabricates lot of simple and complex objects, the complex ones are printed in parts. Earlier some 3D printed clothes were fabricated but they were not flexible and were also printed in parts.

The 3D printed dress made by Nervous system is just like fabric; it is not stiff and can sway as well. The technique behind this is Kinematics. It is a mechanism which helps to print a complex geometry as a one part. It is the combination of different interconnected pieces which may vary from hundreds to more than thousands in number. It is the example of 4D printing in which 3D printing technique is used to further change or transform silhouette of an object.

This 3D printed dress is the first dress which is wearable after coming out from the 3D printing machine. This dress is fabricated from nylon which is a non toxic plastic and almost taken 44 hours to be printed. It is a single piece dress which is made of many interlinked parts which gives it the real behavior of a fabric. These components consist of triangular panels which are linked through hinges. This dress model is designed through CAD in which the 3D dress is designed according to the body shape of a Model.

A JavaScript based design tool is used to control the size shape and quantities of the triangles which results in different designs of the dress. To fulfill the basic aim to get it print as a whole it is transformed in to a folded version which is about 85 percent less than the original volume of dress. This folded shape is achieved by transforming it into the minimum achievable shape. This dress is designed in such a way that it would provide the comfort and its geometry helps to make this easy to wear. It provides the perfect fit and comfort level because it is designed on the base of 3D scanning of the body of a Model.

Triangular Structure 3D-Printed Dress & Hinges structure 3d-printed

Newly designed 3dprinted dress & Petals structure 3dprinted

The first dress designed by nervous system was entirely a combination of triangular structures which was limited to some extent for designers. But recently nervous system has advanced the technology with structural shape of petals, feathers and scales for the end product and hence has diversified the customization features. And this diversity has given such a domain to the users that they can optimize the designing of multiple items/parts of a single dress like upper and lower parts of skirt. Definitely more is to come as we go further in this field and time is also proportional to the cost efficiency of these products so we have to look forward to it anxiously.

Read more about the Kinematics dress on Nervous System official page.