Joanne Lee – Looking Outwards 03

3-D printing has been making its way into fashion for the past several years. Designer Alexis Walsh unveiled The Spire Dress at New York Fashion Week in 2016. I think that 3-D printing brings an entirely new dimension to fashion design and the result is beautiful and intricately detailed collections. The Spire Dress is a result of more than 400 tiles printed on nylon plastic and were individually assembled by hand using metal ring connections. The dress took 6 months to design and put together, and it was inspired by cathedral spires.

Although the dress repeats the same spiral shape in various renditions, the result is something unique from the tiles that make it up. Walsh prototyped the dress on MakertBot 3-D bot printers before sending the final design to be laser cut. Personally, I believe that there is something very captivating about this dress. Perhaps it can be accredited to each tile of the dress being cut very precisely, creating a very clean and geometrical feel to the dress. As someone who attends CMU’s Lunar Gala every year, I hope to see some 3-D printed lines this year!