3D Printing Fashion With Recycled Polyester: A Sustainable Journey

Textile waste is a global problem and one in which we all must tackle together to minimize. In the UK alone 350,000 tonnes of textile waste goes to landfill each year. In order to foster pro environmental behaviors in the household and for it to become part of our culture, recycling awareness must be converted into practice. Bringing together sustainability and innovative technology, the focus of this enquiry, aims to examine, design and manufacturing possibilities using recycled Polyester filament to 3D print fashion garments. This explorative journey will determine whether it is feasible to use this material to create wearable or sculptural fashion pieces, through design, development, sampling and testing whilst using an entirely sustainable material. Recycled PET has been used for many years by outdoors clothing companies such as Patagonia who have been the pioneers of using old polyester clothing and recycling it back into new yarn to make more clothing. Working with Teijin a Japanese high-performance material developer since 2005 they have been able to advance their environmental responsibilities further into more of their products. In this study, the use of rPET will be explored. Since 2010 3D printing has emerged as a new method of manufacture for clothing. This is mainly evident in experimental sculptural forms for women as seen by Iris van Herpen. Likening the development and commercialization of 3D printing in fashion to that of the desktop computer. In the beginning, few could afford or know how to use a PC, in time many improvements made it more affordable, smaller and more commercial. We are at the beginning of this journey with 3D printing in fashion but like the PC, before too long it will be commonplace to all

3d Printing: Virtual draping the new moulage

This practice-based enquiry aims to examine design and manufacturing possibilities using 3D CAD and 3D printing and to systematically test a range of materials in order to establish those appropriate for 3d printing fashion. The feasibility of draping and sculpting materials directly onto the body virtually using Rhino (3D CAD software) will be explored. Unlike former virtual 3D modeling where a pattern could be made from the draped fabric on an avatar, this enquiry intends to explore whether printing the material directly from the software can eliminating the need for traditional pattern cutting. Since 2012 3D printing has emerged as a new method of manufacture for clothes. This has mainly been evident in experimental sculptural forms for women. As educators it is important for us to demonstrate up to date techniques that may change the pattern cutting & design landscape in both education and industry. Developed for the prototyping industry the materials available for this process are not all suitable as they have many limitations, therefore must be tested

Design and Development of 3D Printed Textile Structures

3D printing is shaping new business models and is leading the way in rapid prototyping. From Product Design and Engineering and most recently into Fashion and Textiles. This manufacturing revolution poses challenges for conventional business models for example, items to be produced locally, leading to shifts in existing supply chains and global logistics. Advancements in Additive Manufacturing in textiles recently enabled designers to produce 3D printed garments directly from raw material, such as polymer, in a single manufacturing operation. This technology not only has the potential to reduce waste, labour costs and CO2e, but can modernise clothing production by encouraging localised manufacturing and production.   In this research existing 3D Printed structures that could be used for textile&fashion have been identified, compared and analysed in both their physical design, textile like properties and uses. Comparing the structures to each other and the existing traditional textile structures allows the research team to identify areas for improvement and development and potential uses for each type of structure and manufacturing method. This information will inform new 3D printed textile design going forward and can be built on as the technology develops further. As case studies a number of 3D structures designed and developed as new textile structures using 3D various printing machines at the University of Huddersfield incorporating some recycled materials from post-consumer waste polyester

3D Printed Fashion: A Dual Approach

Since the inception of 3D Printing in fashion, the innovators and originators of the medium have come from various disciplines of design. Prototyping was the main use for the first 30 years, being most popular in the areas of engineering, architecture, and product design. The 3D software that was used in these industries to visualize the designs lent itself to 3D printing fashion. Francis Bitonti, Julian Hakes, Richard Beckett & Neri Oxman all designers whose most notable work is in 3D printed fashion design, yet their backgrounds are in Architecture and they used their 3D skills to create fashion pieces. The most notorious fashion designer who has ventured into 3D printing is Iris van Herpen who often collaborates with designers from other disciplines to create and visualize her intricate 3D printed designs. In this paper, the researchers from 2 different of the aforementioned disciplines, who both use 3D printers, offer a unique insight into the pros and cons of 3D printing fashion from each perspective

An Analysis of 3D Printed Textile Structures

3D printing in Fashion is quite a significant innovation which came to realization as part of the zeitgeist of the 2000’s. This is a time where technological progress has moved faster in the last 20 years than it has in the last 100. This exponential growth means that the world in which we live in is changing at a rapid rate and both design and materials will need to alter along with it. Focusing on the areas of technology, design and manufacturing this research aims to look at new textile structures with extensive research undertaken of existing 3D printed textiles and fashion. The main aim is the categorization of all existing 3D printed textile structures in fashion, in order to recognize their properties and benefits

A design driven approach to 3D printing textiles from recycled polyester

Polyester is aligned to the industrial cycle and as such needs to be preserved as a recyclable resource. (Goldsworthy, 2009). In the last 50 years alone plastic production has increased by 500% and when discarded often ends up in the rivers and sea creating ‘plastic soup’. Finding new ways to recycle this into new things is infinitely better than creating new as it saves on CO2 emissions and the ever decreasing resource of oil it starts out as C.A. Griffiths et al (2016) noted this means that the design stage must consider constraints of time and cost and to furthermore consider sustainability and the need to seek to reduce scrap. Due to the nature of 3D printing, it only uses the material needed for a product with exceptions of small supporting pieces during additive manufacturing, rather than the subtraction approach in manufacturing which involves controlled material removal but involves a lot of waste. 3D printing has been known as a throw away fad and one which can produce lots of waste itself as with both novice and amateur makers there are often mistakes which end up in the bin. While, plastics are still recycled at low rates in centralized recycling facilities, distributed plastic recycling to produce filament for 3DP could help increased this rate at a lower economic and environ-mental cost (Kreiger et al., 2014). However, at present the market in raw materials for 3DP remains highly concentrated. Even though 3DP plastic is processed into filament by a range of both small and large companies, feedstock is supplied by a handful of large polymer producers (Despeisse, M., et al 2016) There are number of stake holders already involved in this unique area, from the reprocessing companies to the manufacturers of the filament and the grinders of the virgin material, fashion brands, 3D printing companies and charitable foundations involved in sustainability issues regarding plastics and finally, designers. This paper seeks to outline these stake holders in detail and showcase the current work of the researcher where by in developing the ‘2 Way Closed Loop Cycle’, new textile structures have been designed and printed using recycled polyester. Using a design driven approach the structures of existing 3D Printed textiles were analyzed and new structures were designed based on the properties of the recycled material. From a subject only in its infancy, the researcher aims to show the potential of such an experimental idea and how it could change future maker markets and give the fashion industry another route to take in order to close the loop

A Closed Loop Model for 3D Printing Fashion

This paper discusses the 2 Way Closed Loop Model using recycled polyester (PET polyethylene terephthalate) developed by the author (in 2014) and its relativity to the development of sustainable practices in fashion and 3D printing in fashion. Bringing together sustainability and innovative technology, the focus of this practice based study aims to evaluate the early possibilities of such a model through design and exploring manufacturing methods as well as interviewing Fashion and Technical experts from academia and industry for their views on the model, methods, final usability, constraints and opportunities

3D printing fashion with recycled polyester: A sustainable journey

Textile waste is a global problem and one in which we all must tackle together to minimize. In the UK alone 350,000 tonnes of textile waste go to landfill each year. In order to foster pro environmental behaviours in the household and for it to become part of our culture, recycling awareness must be converted into practice. Bringing together sustainability and innovative technology, the focus of this enquiry, aims to examine, design and manufacturing possibilities using recycled Polyester filament to 3D print fashion garments. This explorative journey will determine whether it is feasible to use this material to create wearable or sculptural fashion pieces, through design, development, sampling and testing whilst using an entirely sustainable material. Recycled PET has been used for many years by outdoors clothing companies such as Patagonia who have been the pioneers of using old polyester clothing and recycling it back into new yarn to make more clothing. Working with Teijin a Japanese high-performance material developer since 2005 they have been able to advance their environmental responsibilities further into more of their products. In this study, the use of rPET will be explored. Since 2010 3D printing has emerged as a new method of manufacture for clothing. This is mainly evident in experimental sculptural forms for women as seen by Iris van Herpen. Likening the development and commercialization of 3D printing in fashion to that of the desktop computer. In the beginning, few could afford or know how to use a PC, in time many improvements made it more affordable, smaller and more commercial. We are at the beginning of this journey with 3D printing in fashion but like the PC, before too long it will be commonplace to all