Gallery: These Strange Clothes Came Out of a Regular Old 3-D Printer
Danit Peleg01Black dress
For her graduate project at Shenkar, an art and design school in Israel, Danit Peleg developed a five-piece fashion collection that can be produced entirely with an at-home 3-D printer.
Danit Peleg02Red jacket and dress
After experimenting unsuccessfully with the hard plastic filaments typically used in consumer 3-D printers, Peleg found a strong, flexible variety called FilaFlex.
Danit Peleg03White
Paired with new cellular structures being devised by 3-D printing researchers, the material allowed Peleg to create “lace-like textiles” that she could work with “just like cloth.” She printed them using a Witbox---a $1,800 machine.
Danit Peleg04temp1
But Peleg’s collection shows the variety of looks that are possible with the technique. Some of the dresses are unmistakably cutting-edge, their complex triangles clinging to the models like scaffolding on futuristic skyscrapers. But some of Peleg’s other garments are very nearly normal.
Danit Peleg05Skirt
Two more conventional looks include a black dress with subtle, tasteful topography and a long black-and-white striped skirt paired with a teal cropped top. These look different than they would if made with more traditional textiles, but the difference isn’t arresting.
Danit Peleg06Jacket
Peleg found that it took around 20 hours to print a piece of plastic textile as big as a single sheet of office paper, and in the end, she had to scale up production to a “3-D printing farm” of several units to finish the garments in time for their debut (she 3-D printed a pair of striking red heels for the models to wear on the runway).
Danit Peleg07Green
Each outfit took around 400 hours to print in all.
