Looking Outwards-03

If you have read my first blog post, you will remember that I am an advocate for fashion design, especially if the usage of advanced technology are involved. Through this class, I have been able to discover a variety of different computational design artists. In this blog, I would like to highlight Nervous System‘s famous and innovative 3D printed Kinematic fabric dress, which has been featured in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Nervous System has created their first dress using Kinematics, a unique 3D printing system that creates complex, flexible forms of articulated modules. They first use WebGL, a JavaScript API for rendering 2D and 3D graphics, to write computer programs based on processes and patterns inspired by nature. The team also uses 3D scanning and a physics simulation to fold a piece of fabric into the machine for fabrication, and later is printed with SLS technology. The idea is that once the fabric piece is removed from the machine, it can unfold into a dress.

I greatly admire the intricate detail and the thousands of unique interlocking elements that were incorporated into the dress. I believe it showcases the future of both sustainably made garments and fashion in general, with digital fabrication making any designer’s wildest ideas come true. Nervous System mainly draws inspiration from natural phenomena, and I can see how they implement the complexities of nature in their designs. Their design platform pushes fashion and computational fabrication in a way where they are able to express and customize their concepts with CAD software and 3D printing to create evolutional and affordable wearable art.