Re-Engineering the Fashion World with 3D Printing

On September 14, the worlds of fashion and tech intersected at NYU Tandon’s MakerSpace, where you could see a display of little black dresses and unique accessories that would not have been out of place in a high-end boutique in a trendy city neighborhood.

The occasion was a “3D Talk” panel discussion organized by Barbara Hanna, the founder of Cyant, a company that aims to connect art and technology. On the panel were Sylvia Heisel, a designer working with new materials, manufacturing techniques, and physical computing whose dresses were being shown; Lizz Hill, a senior manager of the product visualization team for accessories hardware and jewelry at the iconic company Coach, who also has her own line of 3D printed jewelry called Toolry; Lauren Slowik, the director of education and designer evangelism at the platform Shapeways and a founding member of the Lady Tech Guild, a group started to connect and inspire women working in the 3D industries.

Lizz Hill talks about how 3D printing is disrupting the fashion industry.

Moderated by Hanna and Victoria Bill, the founding manager of Tandon’s MakerSpace, the discussion ranged over a wide array of topics, from the ways in which 3D printing is shortening the time between envisioning a product and seeing it in the marketplace to the popularity of bio-inspired accessory designs and the scalability of creating fabric on a 3D printer.

“Tech is no longer a forbidden word in the fashion industry,” Hill asserted. “It has changed into a real selling point. People who want to be in on the latest are searching out 3D printed designs.”