Can We Use 3D Printing to Create Clothes?

3D printing technologies will soon transform the way we manufacture things like industrial equipments, furniture, toys, intricate prototypes and models for industries like architecture, health and medicine, aerospace science, automotives, engineering, etc. But can we use this technology to create clothing? To your surprise, yes we can! Recently a design studio called the Nervous System successfully created a garment (a one piece dress) using 3D printing technology.
Even though this is not the first time that this technology has been used to create a dress, it is certainly the first time that a garment has been created by using an advanced 3D printing system (Nervous System Kinematics), which is designed by the studio itself. This software can create exceedingly complex structures compiled from articulated modules. The 3D printed dress created by the studio required no assembly, whatsoever. They just took out the pile of plastic from their printer, washed it and that’s it, they got a dress!
The dress is now a part of the permanent collection at MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art). With the successful creation of this dress, several new possibilities have opened up, especially in the field of fabricating industry. Use of 3D printing for manufacturing high-fashion clothing is one such possibility. If you are still not impressed, don’t think of this dress as just a dress, but a complex structure made up of thousands of smaller pieces, pre-assembled by a machine to create something we wanted.