14 DAY TRIAL // Laces, ruffles, and torchons, or any synonyms thereof, can either make or break a dress, but sometimes they end up being the only thing that make up said article of clothing. It is this type of dress that a fashion art house based in Hong Kong has revealed.
Said fashion house, called SHIGO, may become quite notorious after this, especially on the 3D printing industry front. After all, how many can say they were able to make a fully wearable article of clothing just by use of a pen?
Because that's what SHIGO did. Admittedly, they used a 3D printing pen, but that only adds to the mystique, shall we say.
As you can see in the attached photos, the art house created a 3D printed dress that doesn't seem to be made of anything besides laces.
The mechanics
In essence, they're pretty simple. A designer, or group of designers, picked up a 3Doodler 3D printing pen and set to work building the dress lace by lace.
We've seen 3D printed clothes before, but they were mostly rigid and not at all comfortable to wear for long stretches of time. 3D printed headdresses, jewelry, and other apparel have been doing a lot better actually.
With the new dress, however, we finally have a dress that, despite being made of plastic, actually conforms to the body and doesn't make movement feel awkward.
First, the designers printed the template normally, with a 2D printer. Then they created the dress outline from thick paper, on which they pasted the template. Then, every line was traced onto the paper outline.
Two different 3Doodler PLA filaments were finally used to create the dress, Blue Steel and Diamonds & Pearls. The final stage was peeling the plastic off the paper and attaching the buckles. In the end, the texture turned out quite soft.
The lace plastic seashell dress took three months to make and actually turned out better that the designers imagined it. It is based on two different kinds of seashells that interconnect. Only the buckles on the sides of the dress and the shoulder are not 3D printed (an easy exit and entrance for the wearer).
SHIGO's future plans
SHIGO intends to continue living up to its modus operandi, which is to take normal concepts and transform them into amazing pieces of work.
Still, the dress will probably never be marketed, since no one can expect SHIGO artists to spend the rest of their lives only kneeling in front of a mannequin and laying the plastic lines one by one. Although some orders might be taken, for collector's edition items if nothing else.
