Customer reference
FACTS
Industry Consumer Goods
Application Customized fashion
Short profile
Continuum Fashion consists of
Designers Mary Huang and Jenna
Fizel. They use digital tools
sophisticatedly to bring their
extraordinary customized
creations to live.
Challenge
Develop a wearable and printable
fabric to produce a bikini.
Solution
Manufacturing of customized
bikinis by using a FORMIGA P 100.
Results
• Strong and flexible: material enables production of thread-like connections
• Aesthetic: manufacturing process facilitates intricacy
of design
• Affordable: Innovative fashion design that is within the means of everyone because of its production method as well as the distribution channel.
• Customized: modular system for sizing and potential for custom fit
Further information
www.continuumfashion.com
Image source: Continuum Fashion
Computational couture:
3D printing enables a new fashion dimension
Just imagine an article of clothing that makes a woman appear naked and dressed at the same time. A
garment that consists of two pieces and that was invented by an automobile engineer, not a fashion designer,
more than 65 years ago. And what is more, and seems unbelievable, imagine an outfit that is wearable even
though it was not sewn, but printed. That sounds like something from a fairy tale. Far from it! The N12 bikini
is already reality, the world‘s first ready-to-wear, completely 3D-printed article of clothing. All of the pieces,
including the closures, are made directly by 3D printing, and snap together without any sewing. Designed
by Jenna Fizel and Mary Huang of Continuum Fashion, and made possible by laser-sintering technology,
N12 represents the beginning of what is possible in fashion for the near future.
Challenge
One of the main principles behind
Continuum Fashion is pushing the
possibilities of digital fabrication
tools to create designs that specifically reflect the technology behind
the manufacturing process. With
the N12 bikini, the designers were
trying to reinterpret textile design
through a computational lens, and
they have initiated a kind of paradigm shift in the textile industry.
In creating a fabric, the design
team knew that they had to think
in absolutely new ways, though
they want to keep the link to
conventional textile production.
So their idea was to subdivide the
surface into small patches that
are connected to each other by
thin elements in order to achieve
both coverage and flexibility. This
connective component can be seen
as the weft that is aligned to the
warp in traditional textile weaving.
The shape of the elements had to
conform to the curves of the body,
enable movement and support
the transition of the pattern from
one size to another. Triangles and
other polygons can only approximate curves, resulting in a fairly
wide range of aspect ratios especially when it comes to customization. Circles, however, don’t
suffer from this issue. They are,
of course, always perfectly round.
Customer reference
Solution
FizeI found vital inspiration in the
way a necklace of beads can coil
against itself and form a fairly well
packed but also well-organized
configuration. Assigned to the
pattern of the bikini, it means
that curvier areas get smaller
circles and flatter areas larger,
both to help with accurately
approximating the surface and to
ensure flexibility where it is needed,
and efficiency of pattern where it
is not. To create a fabric, volumetric
3D geometry had to be generated:
The two resulting plates were
connected through their centres
by a central cylindrical stalk. Due
to the concavity or convexity of
the surface, some plates intersected each other, so the radius
of these plates had to be reduced.
Finally, 3D spiral curves and
volumes were created that connect
the circle assemblies from central
stalk to central stalk. “With the N12
system we are attempting to use
the variability, continuity and
precision of complex 3D modelling
in combination with laser sintering
to produce a textile with new and
unique properties”, says Fizel.
N12 is named for the material the
bikini is made out of: Polyamide
12 (Nylon). To manufacture the
swimsuit the whitish plastic powder
is processed on a FORMIGA P 100
via laser sintering. During this
process the laser melts the fine
powder according to the 3D data
layer by layer with extreme
precision.
Results
The polyamide material used, PA
2200, is strong and flexible. Its
strength allows it to be printed
as thin as 7 mm, and it can make
springs that bend and stretch without breaking. “Thus our design is
actually made in a 3D printed
fabric, where thread-like connections form a material that also
cohesively creates the aesthetic
design. It is flexible, and comfortably wearable. The polyamide
makes an ideal swimsuit material,
being innately waterproof. The
surface texture is actually similar
to something like sand dollars from
the beach, and so it has the interesting property of being the first
bikini that actually becomes more
comfortable when it gets wet,”
says Fizel.
In the finished bikini design, the top
is composed of four pieces that
hook together. This provides a
modular system for sizing and it
packs flat in the building chamber
that means a comparatively low
amount of material is needed. “We
felt it was important to design
something that could be produced
affordably enough for retail. And
of course, it makes it easy to put
on and take off,” adds Fizel. Since it
requires no additional finishing, the
top can be ordered and shipped
directly from the online community
and market place
www.shapeways.com.
“The design of the bikini fundamentally reflects the beautiful intricacy
possible with laser sintering, as
well as the technical challenges
of creating a flexible surface out
of a solid polyamide”, explains
Huang. “Thousands of circular
plates are connected by thin
strings, creating a wholly new
material that holds its form as
well as being flexible. The layout
of the circle pattern was achieved
through custom written code that
distributes the circles according
to the curvature of the surface.
In this way, the aesthetic design
is completely derived from the
structural design.”
created in order to make wearable
3D printed fabric is visually appealing for a number of things. Fizel
says: “By now a variety of 3D
printed jewellery and accessories
are available and it is possible to
make a complete dress, zipper
included, in a similar way. It is
conceivable that any range of
clothing can be made directly
from digital designs, without any
sewing and on one laser-sintering
system.” According to Fizel there
is much potential in automating
custom fit, and creating a bespoke
design from a 3D body scan more
immediately. The combination of
accessible rapid fabrication and
direct interaction with consumers
presents many exciting possibilities for the future of fashion and
the future of products in general.
The bikini was a starting point.
The patterning the design duo
“The bikini‘s design fundamentally reflects the beautiful intricacy possible with laser sintering, as
well as the technical challenges of creating a flexible surface out of solid nylon. The pattern we
created to make wearable 3D printed fabric is visually appealing for a number of reasons.”
Mary Huang, Designer of Continuum Fashion
“PA 2200 is the only material that has all the properties we need, which are minimum print thinness
and flexibility plus wear and feel. It can also be printed inexpensively enough to create a commercial
product.” Jenna Fizel, Designer of Continuum Fashion
EOS GmbH Electro Optical Systems
Robert-Stirling-Ring 1
82152 Krailling/Munich, Germany
Phone +49 89 893 36-0
Fax +49 89 893 36-285
www.eos.info • [email protected]
Status 02/2012. Technical data subject to change without notice. EOS®, EOSINT® and e-Manufacturing™
are registered trademarks of EOS GmbH. EOS is certified according to ISO 9001.