Paris Fashion Week: Iris van Herpen brings 3D Printing on the scene

Dutch Designer Iris van Herpen drew the attention of the public this week with her silicon “Bird” dress and skeletal pieces made using 3D printing.

The haute couture show is described as a meditation on nature. Commenting on her creation, Van Herpen told the press: “Don’t forget how engineered nature is, itself. I think we as humans don’t even come close to the intelligence within nature. It’s funny how people think that nature is simple and technology is complex—it’s the opposite; technology is simple and nature is complex.”

Photos via Iris Van Herpen

The 3D printed dress

Softness characterizes this new collection of the designer. Titled the “Foliage dress,” it was manufactured using a 3D printer that used Polyjet technology to print multiple materials simultaneously. The materials of the dress were made of a high-tech synthetic resin. Furthermore, the dress was printed directly onto sheer, weightless 0.8-milimeter tulle for “optimal softness.”

Since the resin “cures” in ultraviolet light, the artist interchanged the material “on a droplet level” to create natural variations in color and transparency. The entire process required about 260 hours, and the dress wasn’t complete until post-processing, when “stresses within the material” started to naturally deform the printed pieces. “This design is a fusion of precisely controlled digital 3D modeling and the less-predictable analog nature of deformation,” Iris V. H. explained.

For further information about 3D Printing, follow us on our social networks and subscribe to our newsletter!
//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});