Future of fashion

A new idea, spray-painted clothing, joins digital textile printing and 3-D printed clothing as a possible tool for creating the future of fashion.

Spanish fashion designer Manel Torres, working together with scientists from University College London, has developed spray-on fabric (Figure 1). Short fibers of wool, linen or acrylic are mixed with a polymer solvent which binds immediately as they are sprayed onto a person or mannequin.

Figure 1: Spray-on Fabric developed by designed Manel Torres (Source)

Clothing made from spray-on fabric was presented at the Science in Style fashion show, September 21, 2010 in London (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Science in Style, London, September 21, 2010 (Source)

There are many speculations about the wide range of potential applications for spray-on fabric. Some of the obvious ideas for on-demand fabric are sterile bandages and military and crisis relief use. Practical uses are interesting too. For example, to the extent the material is recyclable and cost-effective, being able to spray-on additional layers when feeling cold, and easily remove and discard them when hot could be quite convenient. Rain gear could be similarly donned and discarded. The long-expected futurist’s dream of on-demand 3D clothing printing booths could be closer to being realized.

Long-tail economics extended to physical objects

Chris Anderson, editor of WIRED magazine, gave an excellent talk on August 5, 2010 at the PARC Forum. He explained how the long-tail economic models which have driven digital content (allowing consumers to access books, music, and movies in the 80% of the market that is not blockbusters) are now starting to appear in the world of physical goods.

The process of realizing long-tail economics in any sector is that of going one-to-many; democratizing the tools of creation, then the tools of production, and finally the tools of distribution. This is what happened with internet content such as publishing, where it is now easy for anyone to create, produce, and distribute content with blogs, twitter feeds, YouTube, etc. This has also happened with other digital content and some physical goods that are ordered and distributed via internet models (e.g.; Amazon, Zappos, etc.).

The new industrial revolution, argues Anderson, is in opensource hardware factories. The supply chain has now opened up to the digital and the small. The ability to make and distribute anything massively decentralizes traditional manufacturing and could completely reorganize industrial economies…atoms are the new bits. Matthew Sobol’s holons (communities of local resilience and sustainability) are in the works. Goods can be self-designed or crafted from available digital designs (e.g.; communities like ShapeWays and Ponoko), and then printed locally on the MakerBot or ordered from Alibaba or other global manufacturies. Opensource manufacturing is starting to have an impact on industries like auto design and construction (e.g.; Local Motors), drones (e.g.; DIY Drones), and general hardware design (empowered by the Beagle Board and Arduino).

It is likely that long-tail economics can be applied to many other areas. Medicine is the next obvious example, where health care, health maintenance, drug development, and disease treatment are already starting to shift into n=1 or n=small group tiers of greater customization and ideally, lower cost as more precision is obtained in the measuring and understanding of disease and wellness.