Fashion and Textiles

The growth in fast fashion already has disrupted the seasonality of the fashion industry, and 3D printing has the power to further accelerate production. It also allows consumers to get involved in designing of the clothes they wear. Because 3D printing works well with hard materials, it has been introduced to the fashion industry with jewelry, shoes, and ornamentation. Brands like Adidas, Reebok, and New Balance have all launched 3D-printing initiatives.

On the jewelry front, Lockheed Martin filed a patent application for a 3D printer that produced synthetic diamonds in 2016. Another company, Sandvik, prints diamonds using composite materials. While the applications for composite diamonds are manufacturing-focused (e.g. drills), the technology could eventually spread to consumer diamonds. Many fashion houses, enabled by 3D-technology companies such as CLO, are now using 3D scanning and 3D printing to create custom products. Designer Iris Van Herpen unveiled a collection of 3D-printed clothes during the Paris Fashion Week 2018 show.

Despite the potential of 3D printing in the fashion industry, there are limitations to what it can do with soft materials and non-geometric shapes. Some envisage a hybrid future in which 3D printing works in tandem with traditional methods to leverage the best of both worlds (Figure 7.18).

FIGURE 7.18 3D-printed textile.

Weapons

In 2012, Defense Distributed, a US-based group, announced plans to “[design] a working plastic gun that could be downloaded and reproduced by anyone with a 3D printer.” Defense Distributed also designed a 3D printable AR-15 type rifle lower receiver (capable of more than 650 rounds in duration) and a 30-round M16 magazine. The AR-15 has multiple receivers (both the upper and lower receiver), but the legally controlled part is the one that is serialized (the lower part, in the case of the AR-15). Soon after Defense Distributed succeeded in designing the first working blueprint for the production of a plastic 3D printer gun in May 2013, the US Department of State requested that the instructions be removed from their website. After Defense Distributed released its plans, questions were raised about the potential impact of 3D printing and widespread consumer CNC machining on gun control effectiveness.

In 2014, a man from Japan became the first person in the world to be jailed for making 3D-printed weapons. Yoshitomo Imura posted online videos and gun blueprints and was sentenced to two years in prison. In his home, the police found at least two weapons capable of shooting bullets (Figure 7.19).

FIGURE 7.19 3D-printed weapons.