DESIGN TO DEMATERIALIZE
AUTHORS: Noelle Hauer, Alex Hudich, Mathilda Schröder, Sabrina Smith, Marina Stefanidou, Sneha Suman
HISTORY & CONTEXT
Iris van Harpen founded her namesake brand in 2007 using 3D printing and laser cut technology as the definitive tools for her work. Now she is experimenting with heat bonding and 4D printers as they code movement into material, transforming it.
Peter Pilotto’s duo, Christopher de Vos and Peter Pilotto, and the Greek designer, resident in London, promoted the endless possibilities of Photoshop and Computer Aided Design, and breaking fashion’s traditionalistic construction rules for high-fashion.
Fourteen years later, technological materials with cutting-edge creation software are combined and the result is a game changer for the fashion industry. A new perspective is found for virtual garment production and distribution before creating physical samples, even an entire digital collection just for virtual runway communication purposes.
Photo by Francois Le Nguyen on Unsplash
TERMINOLOGIES, DATA & FACTS
ADDRESSES
Waste and transport impact in the design and production phase, as well as traceability and transparency The design phase can be quickened, shorted, and made material efficient with the help of innovative softwares. Digital platforms are also solving fashion’s chronic issues around transparency and tracking a garment’s origin, impact, and lifecycle.
WHAT IS DIGITAL PRODUCT CREATION (DPC)?
Let’s take it back to the traditional design process. Before any garment goes into large-scale production and is ready to be sold, it goes through a lengthy and complex journey, starting with the creation of physical samples. The sample approval process entails weeks of back-and-forth shipping, often overseas, with endless flawed physical samples ending up in landfills and contributing to large-scale pollution. This is where Digital Product Creation (DPC) comes into the picture.
3D VIRTUAL SAMPLING
Sampling is a key stage in product development, without sampling it is practically impossible to tell the structure of the finished product or how it will look. But the traditional method of product sampling was not only time-consuming, consisting of too many layers, but also extremely expensive, resulting in added production cost. But now with the invention of 3D virtual product sampling, designers have the option to sample and customize the product digitally before moving to mass production.
DIGITAL AVATARS FOR FIT AND SIZING
Digital avatars for 3D fit and sizing analysis are the closest digital replica of the live fit model's body or physical dress form (mannequin/dummy) utilized for garment draping. 3D avatars' body measurements are recorded, setting the consistency in sizing when developing new styles. These digital avatars make 3D fit analysis efficient and accurate while eliminating the sampling cost in the early stages of product development. For a fit purpose, avatars can be animated to fit positions to test garment draping and tension behavior when the body moves to extreme positions. This option makes it possible to digitally try and resolve fit issues early in the garment engineering process, thus saving time to arrive at the well-fitted approved production sample.
3D DESIGN AND VISUALIZATION
It brings life to flat sketches, and can be connected to graphic design softwares like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. It enables designers to apply artworks at real scale on a life-like 3D garment, so one knows how the design will really look when executed.
The software is frequently updated to reflect new trend developments, as well as access to the Pantone color library.
PROJECT BRIEF
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platforms are powerful tools that can provide data-driven insights and refinements for various aspects of product development and management, including product strategy, planning, sourcing, pricing, and assorting. By leveraging information gathered from multiple sources across the supply chain and omni-channel, these platforms can help you make better-informed decisions about your products and ultimately improve overall customer satisfaction and engagement.
One of the key benefits of using PLM platforms is the ability to gather and analyse data from a wide range of sources, including customer feedback, market trends, and sales data. By aggregating this information into a centralised platform, you can gain a more holistic view of your product offerings and make more informed decisions about how to optimise them.
In addition to data aggregation and analysis, PLM platforms can also benefit from the usage of 3D visualisation and AI technology. By implementing these features, teams can gain a more nuanced understanding of style-researched-based examples and apply this knowledge to inform design decisions and refine product offerings. This can help to improve the overall quality and appeal of your products, ultimately driving customer engagement and satisfaction.
Overall, PLM platforms are an essential tool for any business looking to optimise their product development and management processes. By leveraging the power of data and technology, you can gain valuable insights and make more informed decisions about your products, ultimately driving success and growth for your business.
HELPFUL RESOURCES
How Virtual Prototyping with 3D Improves Each Step of the Supply Chain
How 3D Garment Design Can Mitigate the Impact of the Environment
AI ENABLED TREND, RESEARCH, FORECAST & ANALYSIS
Heuritech's technology leverages deep learning and computer vision techniques to extract meaningful information from images, enabling it to recognize and classify various fashion attributes, such as patterns, colors, and styles. By analyzing these attributes in the context of broader market data, the company can generate actionable insights and trend predictions with a high degree of accuracy.
The applications of Heuritech's platform extend beyond trend forecasting. It can also provide valuable insights into consumer preferences, brand perception, and competitor analysis. By understanding consumer behavior and sentiment, companies can enhance their product offerings, tailor their marketing campaigns, and improve customer engagement.
Heuritech serves many clients in the fashion and retail industry, including luxury brands, fast fashion retailers, and e-commerce platforms. By leveraging AI and computer vision, the company aims to empower fashion businesses with data-driven intelligence, enabling them to make informed decisions and navigate the ever-changing landscape of fashion trends. Read more about Heuritech here.
HEURITECH
Meltwater is a global media intelligence and social media monitoring company founded in 2001. While Meltwater doesn't specialize in the fashion industry, it offers services that fashion companies can utilize to gain insights into their brand, competitors, and market trends.
Meltwater's primary focus is on media monitoring and analysis. The company has developed a sophisticated platform that collects and analyzes data from millions of online sources, including news articles, social media posts, blogs, forums, and more. By utilizing natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, Meltwater's platform can extract valuable insights and trends from this vast amount of unstructured data.
Brands can leverage Meltwater's services in several ways for the fashion industry. Firstly, fashion brands can monitor their brand mentions and sentiment across various media channels. This helps them understand how their brand is perceived, identify potential PR crises, and measure the impact of their marketing campaigns. Read more about Meltwater here.
MELTWATER
On top of their own work with brands, T-Fashion’s website also works as a resource platform as it works on developing reports on Market Trends for players in the industry to access and be in the loop. Read more about T-Fashion here.
T-FASHION
T-Fashion is a recent AI tool for fashion designers that helps brands follow market trends, by analyzing millions of data points created by the defined target audience, influencers, trendsetters, and different brands. It also has the ability to validate brand’s creative pursuits by comparing current or emerging fashion trends & analyzing if they support the brands efforts.
One aspect of T-Fashion that is important to note is their concern with sustainability. Besides detecting sustainable market trends, it also provides brands with emerging sustainable products that they can utilize in the design process.
RANGE PLAN
There are a variety of tools and technologies that can be used to facilitate and automate the process of creating range plans and enable more structure and easier processes overall.
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PLM PLATFOMRS
PLM platforms can help manage the entire lifecycle of a product from ideation to the end-of-life while providing data-driven insights and improving overall workflow management for more efficient and successful range planning. (For an overview on some PLM platforms for fashion click here.)
COLLABORATION TOOLS
Collaboration tools such as cloud-based platforms can help automate the process of communicating with suppliers, manufacturers, and other stakeholders involved in the range planning process. (For an overview on collaboration platforms click here.)
DIGITAL PLANNING BOARDS
Digital Planning Boards are a merchandise planning tool to empower the creative aspects of the fashion brand, while harnessing financial data to make informed decisions. They can be used to create mood boards, analyse financial merchandise plans, and manage live line sheets for the retail, fashion, apparel, and footwear industries. (For a Digital Planning Board to use click here.)
OTHER TECHNOLOGIES
The technologies used in the range planning process include Artificial Intelligence for analysing sales data and customer behaviour to make more accurate predictions about what products will be popular and what sizes and colours should be included, Automated Data Entry to automatically extract data from various sources such as ERP systems, production systems, and supplier systems, and Machine Learning for analysing historical data and identifying patterns that can be used to make more informed decisions about the range plan.
MOOD & INSPIRATION BOARD
Digital Mood Board tools provide designers with more flexibility, efficiency, and collaboration opportunities, allowing them to create more visually appealing and effective designs. There are Tools that can help with automating the process so that the focus can be laid on the ideas themselves as well as innovative tools that take a different approach to creative expression through virtual environments. In this section you can click on the tool to land on the website.
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AUTOMATION TOOLS
CANVA
A graphic design platform that offers a range of templates and customization options for creating mood boards. It also has an AI-powered design tool called Magic Resize, which can automatically adjust the size and layout of images to fit the mood board template. Discover Canva here.
BOARDS
An AI-powered mood board generator that allows users to create custom mood boards in just a few clicks. It uses machine learning algorithms to analyse images and generate a visually appealing mood board. Discover Boords here.
INNOVATIVE TOOLS
TILT BRUSH
A virtual reality tool that allows users to create 3D paintings and drawings in a virtual space. It can be used to create immersive mood boards and visualisations, and allows designers to experiment with different colours, textures, and materials in a digital environment. Dicover Tiltbrush here.
SKETCHAR
An augmented reality tool that allows users to draw and sketch designs in a real-world environment using their mobile device. It can be useful for creating quick sketches and visualisations on-the-go, and can be integrated with other design tools for further refinement. Discover Sketchar here.
AI POWERED DATA DRIVEN MATERIAL SELECTION
AI-powered data-driven material selection in digital fashion refers to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and data analytics to discover the best materials for creating digital fashion goods. This method enables designers to make informed material choices based on factors like sustainability, cost, and aesthetic appeal.
The study of images of fabrics and textures using computer vision and machine learning algorithms is one application of this technology. By examining data, AI algorithms can discover patterns and features in materials, which can impact decisions about their use in fashion design.The use of predictive modeling and simulation tools to evaluate material performance and durability is another application of AI-powered data-driven material selection. These technologies may mimic how materials would react under different conditions, assisting designers in choosing the optimum materials for their intended purpose.
Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash
Overall, AI-powered data-driven material selection has the potential to change the way digital fashion items are generated and made. Using the power of AI and data analytics, designers can make more informed material decisions, resulting in more sustainable, cost-effective, and aesthetically pleasing products. materials and making processes, with deep reverence for INDIGENOUS WISDOM and NATURE.
BEST PRACTICES
CLO
CLO is a 3D fashion design software that contains a fabric simulation function that analyzes fabric qualities and simulates how they will behave in a garment using AI algorithms. The software also features a tool that allows designers to find and compare various materials depending on their attributes and characteristics. Learn more about CLO here.
OPTITEX
Optitex is a 3D design software that contains an AI-powered fabric simulation capability. Designers may use the software to model how different textiles would react when draped or stretched, allowing them to choose the best materials for their designs. Learn more about Optitex here.
MATERIAL EXCHANGE
Material Exchange is a platform that employs AI-powered data analytics to assist fashion firms in sourcing sustainable materials. The website enables firms to search for and compare various materials based on criteria such as sustainability certifications, environmental impact, and pricing. Lear more about Material Exchange’s Sourcing Platform here.
3D DIGITAL SKETCHES
The use of 3D garment technology is an alternative to reduce the environmental damage caused by the fashion industry in the initial stage of product development.
3D clothing service platforms allow 3D virtualization of garment pattern, fabrics and trims, and have provided designers and pattern makers an opportunity to get free from tedious drawing and cutting works. All we need is just mouse click movements in front of a screen. In digital apparel development, significant modifications and changes of direction can be done virtually, without producing any fabric and waste. 3D has made great advances in design by allowing designers to quickly visualize how garments will ultimately look without waiting to see a physical sample. For the individuals involved in 3D garment design, there are also benefits of working as a more efficient and agile designer. Coupled with this, some gains can be made to minimize overproduction with better decision making using data, better matching of production to demand, and making changes in response to trends sustainably.
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3D design softwares can enable:
Real-time validation and customization of 3D garments
Fast and easy export options
Share your design across supply chain
WHAT IS CAD SKETCH IN FASHION?
Computer-aided design sketch (CAD sketch), also known as a flat sketch or technical flat, is a technical drawing of a garment that is laid flat to show design details such as seams and stitching. It serves as a guide for drafting the pattern of the garment.
WHAT IS FLOAT IN FASHION?
A float is a version of a technical flat that represents a garment’s silhouette and movement. Unlike a technical sketch, a float is characterized by shading and movement lines. The purpose of a float is to show how the garment should fit on the body. 3D design development enables designers to create a 3D pattern, apply trims and decorative details, and create photo realistic images of the desired garment.
dIGITAL PATTERN MAKING
Pattern makers are able to visualize all pattern pieces on a 3D human model, and generate different sizes of patterns automatically to avoid repetitive manual work. CAD pattern making softwares is used to draft highly accurate patterns for a wide variety of garments. With digital pattern making, all the amendments can be marked directly on the 3D sample and all reviews and comments can be shared instantly online.
When designers want to make reference to their previous comments or undo one of the modifications, all they need to do is just a single click. Using those automated functions eliminates the need of laborious repeating works and speeds up the pattern making process.
Some of the advantages of using digital pattern making are as follows:
High degree of precision with drafting and editing
Accelerates design modification and amendment process
No wastage of paper and materials
Easy and quick grading in sizes
3D cad patterns allow real time virtual fitting
Cost reduction
VIRTUALIZATION
By using the virtual try-on function of digital fashion design, designers and pattern makers can find problems that can not be detected in the 2D pattern making process. Unlike flat sewing patterns, 3D fashion design allows real-time virtual fitting. Designers can simulate the draping behavior of 3D cloth patterns and create animation. Such processes can give you a direct view of how your designs work in the real world on virtual figures and eliminates the need for persons to be physically present for every fitting.
Get more information about 2D/3D pattern design softwares to use by downloading our free PDF file below.
PROTOTYPING
The fashion product development process requires multiple rounds of samples. The first set of samples correspond to the design phase, which includes everything from the initial design to pattern making. The second sample set is part of the evaluation phase which is for finalizing garment fit, predicting costings, order quantities, etc.
Finally, after the collection is approved and sent to production, you will need to check samples again to ensure quality and consistency of the entire batch. These samples correspond to the quality control phase. Although each company is more or less free in their decision which steps of the prototyping process to carry out, most of them choose the following system.
Prototype Samples
Fit Samples
Size Set
Pre-Production Samples
Top of Production Samples
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Learn more about prototyping by downloading our free PDF below.
STYLE SELECTION
Moreover, digital platforms also enable designers to showcase their work to their customers, buyers, and partners more easily, eliminating the need for physical samples.
This not only saves time but also reduces costs. Additionally, digital platforms provide designers with the flexibility to make changes to their designs quickly, ensuring that they are always up-to-date with the latest trends and styles. Thus, it is safe to say that the use of digital platforms in fashion design has revolutionised the industry, making it more streamlined, efficient, and versatile than ever before.
HELPFUL RESOURCES
The DPC Report 2022 - The Interline
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