Lineapiù is a world leader in yarn manufacture for the knitting industry, conducting research towards innovative new techniques as well as preserving the historic heritage of Italy’s fashion and textile industry. Miles is a market-leader in luxury textiles. We’ve embarked on a series of long-term collaborations with them and other Italian knitwear brands, to explore the possibilities and added value of 3D Printing for fashion and textiles. Our first co-creation with Lineapiù was made around the possibility of creating a 3D-printed yarn.
Our second project with Lineapiù and Miles, which involved a 3D-printed lace collar | Image courtesy of Pitti Immagine © AKAstudio-collective
The second project involved both Lineapiù and Miles, and showed an evolution to a more complex form of 3D-printed lace. We learnt from Lineapiù’s expertise, and they grew more confident in the possibilities of 3D Printing. Together with Italian design studio Prato Frangia, we created a 3D-printed lace collar with Laser Sintering, which was displayed at the 2016 edition of Pitti Immagine, the annual fashion and textile industry fair in Florence.
The dresses we helped create with Lineapiù and Miles for MUDEC
Our third project with Lineapiù and Maglificio Miles was for an exhibition at MUDEC, the Milan Museum of Cultures. Entitled “Crafting the Future: Stories of Craftsmanship and Innovation”, we went even further in using the traditional art of lace to create a whole variety of delicate 3D-printed details on the clothes designed by Miles. Recreating such intricate handwork with 3D Printing has many advantages. Handmade lace requires highly skilled artisans, who are both rare and costly, and lead times are extremely high. But if you 3D-print the lace designs instead, you can achieve the same intricacy of detail at a lower cost and much shorter lead times. That isn’t to say that 3D printing lace was easy – it was challenging to fine-tune our machine parameters in order to obtain the right softness for the material. We needed to learn from Lineapiù about lace techniques and the articles required finishing by hand, making the projects a successful marriage between advanced technology and manual craftsmanship. Materialise Business Developer Alireza Parandian stated,
“Working with industry leaders such as Lineapiù and Miles has enabled us to learn from their expertise in the knitwear industry, which we then translated into new creations by relying on our backbone of 3D printing technology. We were able to adapt our flexible technology and manufacturing solutions to bring value to an industry ready for innovation.”
With each co-creation, experts and engineers will bring together knowledge from the textile industry and Additive Manufacturing to bring to life a disappearing handicraft. The process will evolve as it goes along, so stay tuned for our future developments in the knitting industry.
We’ve co-created several 3D-printed fashion projects in the past. Interested in learning more? Read all about them on our blog!