14 DAY TRIAL // We've heard about high-tech smart clothes, but that doesn't mean normal clothes are going away. The way those clothes are made, though, will change significantly starting this year.
Why? Because Aaron Rowley and a team of like-minded individuals have come up with a project which is now posted on Alternative Apparel’s Sustainability in Design & Technology.
Said project defined a 3D printer that can create clothes. It is called the Electroloom and should be able to make clothes by the end of the year.
Right now, only a prototype exists, one that can make sheets and tubes out of polymer, and the fabric looks like wisps of silk.
More complicated shapes should be doable though, from fibers that resemble cotton. It means that only inorganic, synthetic fibers will be usable, but at least it's something.
Of course, people who just can't stand clothes made of anything other than organic materials will have to stay away from these things.
A good thing for clothing and fabric factories, since it means that the eventual completion of the Electroloom won't kill an entire industry.
Speaking of which, the clothing 3D printer is expected to become marketing viable by the end of the ongoing year (2014).
Maybe after 2014, Rowley and his team will figure out a process that can use things besides synthetics and composites of synthetic and organic material.
Not like there would be much of anything to research once the actual clothing printing technique is completed, and refinements usually come in their own time anyway.
“Something we are compelled by is embodied energy [which is] essentially the amount of energy that was used to take a raw material to a finished good. So a goal of this project is to reduce the amount of embodied energy in an article of clothing,” said Rowley. “We think it may also be practical to provide basic templates —T-shirts, beanies, and the like — for users who may not be entirely design savvy.”