WHY ADDITIVE 3D MANUFACTURING OFFERS FASHION A NEW FUTURE FOR PRINTED APPAREL

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7 Dec

Written By Debbie Mckeegan

“This is not functional apparel, its disruptive and offers the apparel industry and manufacturing community an exciting opportunity. Direct -to-Textile 3D empowers the creator economy, and iunleashes new commercial opportunities for customisation and personalisation.”
Debbie McKeegan for **PIXEL to PARCEL**
Image Credit: Yanky & Nataf - Featuring a dress from their 2023 collection.

ARTICLE WRITTEN BY DEBBIE McKEEGAN: ORIGINALLY FEATURED ON PIXEL to PARCEL

The Art of Fashion and Additive Apparel

Fashion by definition mirrors time, it captures and locks our vision of society and culture at a finite point. Each and every year, the fashion industry focusses the world’s attention using the global catwalk to make a statement, at each event the talents of the designer and their latest collections form a prism of creativity, capturing time and the latest advancements in technology.

One such moment in Milan showcased the second collection by Yanky & Nataf, a dynamic duo setting the fashion scene on fire with their creativity. Yanky Golian and Nataf Hirshberg are the young creative minds behind the brand which was launched in 2018.

The creators graduated from Israel’s elite design institute Shenkar College and have since masterminded iconic apparel garments for a number of high-profile entertainers, musicians, films and performances. Their work is vibrant, immersive, and playful and harnesses the materials and technology of the moment, to create stunning garments that emit energy and a powerful aesthetic.

Pushing The Boundaries of Design

Working with the design team at Kornit Digital in Tel Aviv, Yanky & Nataf have redefined the printed surface, to create new age materials that enhance their own creativity. Their collection features fabrics with intricate printed surfaces that are more than technical, or tactile – they are adaptive.

Printing using neon inks brings the garments to life when exposed to UV light sources, going further they also created a 3D lenticular effect on the surface of the fabric – changing colour and pattern as the surface is viewed from different angles, transforming the live view of the garment in real time.

Featuring a dress from their 2023 collection, ‘Vittoria’. Printed using Kornit XDi technology to add a 3D printed design onto the surface of the fabric.

Image Credit: Yanky & Nataf
3D Digitally Printed lenticular fabric.

White Inks Unlocks New Creative Applications

Fashion designers can now add their own vision to their material of choice, enabling them to create customised fabrics and one-off, tactile surface effects. In a competitive fashion environment, this is a valuable asset, thus enabling them to create bespoke fabrics for their brands and luxury couture customers.

3D printing technologies are transforming the fashion supply chain. Freeing the designer from traditional sourcing routes to offer on-demand fabric creation, luxurious surface effects and unlimited creativity.

Direct-to-Textile 3D printing has been evolving for a number of years. First developed in the 1980’s, the advanced technology we see today spawns a new chapter for personalised, customised printed surfaces.

White ink offers a new layer of creativity. Not only does it allow you to create surface pattern prints onto coloured grounds, it also allows you to add multiple layers of white ink, to build highly imaginative 3D effects and new materials.

White ink printed on white mesh. Kobi Halperin collection for Kornit. Image by Harel Rintzler

Embellishments and Embroidery

Once the remit of only the most luxurious fashion houses, finely detailed embellishments can now be created on the fly and on-demand using 3D printing technology - liberating the luxury designer and their imagination. When printing using pigment inks, almost all fabrics can be printed and enhanced using 3D surface effects – using cotton, wool and synthetics.

Tatiana Pogrebnyak, is a fashion designer based in Israel, creating unique, bespoke garments for an international VIP client base. Her collections now feature 3D surface effects created using Kornit Digital’s XDI technology. This represents a reinvention for luxury fashion and empowers the designer to enter new markets with exciting new products without the need for investment in highly skilled labour.

The Future of Creation and Technology are Entwined

Technology continues to empower and ignite the creativity of a new generation that have sustainable manufacturing at their core.

As the fashion landscape evolves, the sector has and continues to be democratised by digital print and its ability to remove boundaries. In the field of fashion, competition is fierce. Reinvention is a basic discipline for the restless fashion designer.

As the Fashion industry embraces the creativity of digital applications, the sector becomes increasingly democratised and empowered by technology - forging a new paradigm for the printed apparel industry for both roll-to-roll and DTG (direct to garment) applications.

3D technologies have been evolving for many years, but the technology we see today represents a new chapter, a new vision – made possible only by the advancement of ink-jet and science combined with creativity.