I’ve witnessed many amazing things that come from the magic of 3D printing, but never in a million years would I imagine it transposing to the fashion world. Leave it to 3D master Francis Bitonti to make it a reality in this collaboration, Dita’s Gown, with designer Michael Schmidt Studios and Shapeways, one of the pioneers in the 3D printing world.
Recently debuting on Dita Von Teese, the dress was created virtually with Schmidt designing it exclusively on his iPad and communicating with Bitonti via Skype. The process included the printing of 17 pieces and 3,000 joints that allow the dress to move as the body does. Shapeways did the printing of each piece and once complete, they were lacquered black and detailed with 13,000 black Swarovski crystals.
The results are a curvy, meticulously designed dress that flows with the body. Awesome, right?
Photos by Albert Sanchez Photography.
Pippa on 03.18.2013 at 20:09 PM
Amazing!
Colin Gilchrist on 03.21.2013 at 03:03 AM
Can you elaborate further? The 3D Printing I get but printing on what?
redz on 03.24.2013 at 14:19 PM
Colin just google “Dita’s gown” and you’ll get Francis Bitoni’s website with more info: http://francisbitonti.com/Dita-s-Gown
Chad Elliott on 03.24.2013 at 14:21 PM
Thought I’d give you a little more insight, Collin ;-)
3D printing is commonly done with a generically named “3D Printer”. The largest manufacturer of such devices is Makerbot [http://www.makerbot.com/]. The printers they sell commonly use a type of plastic to create the 3D shape. The plastic is extruded from a heated tip… essentially it’s a really big, fairly precise hot glue gun. The 3D object is designed using a computer program, commonly AutoCAD or Solidworks, then exported to an SD card and loaded into the printer.
We currently use 3D printing at CandyCam [http://gocandycam.com] to create custom parts for our Skyhook. It’s an extremely fast and cost effective way to prototype an object. It can also lead to all kinds of fun projects. We’ve used it to:
- Create iPhone cases
- Build a headphone bracket
- Construct a custom gaming style controller
- Print keychain trinkets of our logo
Needless to say, they can be a blast to play with ;-P
The dress that was featured in this article is very elaborate. I imagine it took a lot of engineering to make it wearable and I think the complexity of the project is lost on those that have never tried 3D printing before. I recommend you read up on how to create more simplistic objects and slowly expand your horizons before jumping head first into 3D printing a wardrobe ;-)
Hope that helps!