Beyond The Fancy Mirror On the Wall: Why AI Is Set to Change Fashion, And Not How You Thought

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#fashiondesigner, artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence in design, artificial intelligence in sales and services, brand consultant, fashion, fashion brands, fashion consultant, fashion retail, machine learning, machine learning and supply chain, technology

Artificial Intelligence is the latest buzzword today. After the industrial revolution and the invention of the World Wide Web, Machine Learning and AI are indeed the next big thing.

Why?

Because a machine with enough data can predict events before they happen, can skim through more data than a million humans in one lifetime, and can help businesses implement these learnings into their strategy!

Some experts are quick to disregard AI in fashion as nothing but a fancy tool to bring more customers into a store. We say, this in itself is not bad. However, the real potential of AI lies well beyond the stores- indeed, it quite literally lies behind the scenes. Because fashion as a business is simply retail, after all.

EDITED, a retail technology company | Source: Courtesy

Here are a few ways in which we think AI in fashion can help make the world, and the business, a better place:

1. Machine Learning and Supply Chains: From the garment manufacturer to the accessory-supplier, every stakeholder in the chain influences when a collection will be ready. Using past delivery trends, a machine can predict where bottlenecks are most likely to arise and help you solve the problem even before it begins. Think Just In Time Inventory Management, adapted to suit manufacturing needs.

2. Artificial Intelligence and Automation: If you’ve heard the new Google Assistant making a hairdresser’s appointment, you already know that machines are poised to perform repetitive tasks with a small degree of variance. Imagine if they could track inventory levels globally, and raise purchase orders when stock levels run too low. Some applications already do this, but by leveraging AI, human intervention in inventory and subsequent errors can almost be nullified.

3. Artificial Intelligence in Design: The actual designing process is a creative endeavor, and from where we currently stand, it is highly unlikely that machines will do it better than humans anytime soon. However, tools can work in tandem with human teams to gather trend data from around the globe to predict what would sell well in the coming seasons- the future climate, economy and social norms taken into account.

4. Artificial Intelligence in Sales and Service: Amazon has just debuted a store where billing is automatic. What if audio-enabled trial rooms became a thing? What if they could offer consumer opinions on the right size and fitting by ‘looking’ at them in a piece of attire? Not just that, even for online brands, more sophisticated chatbots are the need of the hour. Not only do they serve as efficiently, but they also reduce the cost of after-sales service.

5. Machine Learning in Collaborative Fashion: Brand collaborations are not new, but what if they could collaborate with a purpose? For example, a grassroots level linen brand and a global house of fashion could work to create a collection that adds value to everyone involved. Machines can observe trends from around the world and recommend these value-based collaborations.

As the saying goes, give a machine enough data, and it will show you the truth. Scary as it may seem, any repetitive task repeated a million times can approximate what a human being can do. Time to put the machines to task alongside the people then, wouldn’t you say?

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer and Brand Consultant helping fashion brands to create great products from idea to launch. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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3-D Printing Becomes Haute Property

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3D printing, additive manufacturing, fashion innovation, fashion technology, tech in fashion, wearable tech

3D printing technology is making its presence felt in the fashion industry with an increasing number of new designers experimenting with wearable designs made using 3D printers. In 2011, 3D printing made waves in the fashion industry when TIME Magazine named Iris van Herpen’s 3D printed dress one of the greatest inventions of the year. She presented two more designs in 2013, followed a few months later by Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti, who designed a 3D printed dress for burlesque icon Dita Von Teese. While this classifies itself as art, many new designers like Nadir Gordon are embracing the technology as the fashion technique of the future. At the same time, technology has evolved to give 3D printed materials fabric-like feel and finish. With this, 3D printing is moving out of the realm of the jewelry and accessories designers and into mainstream fashion garments.

(Image Source: http://3dprinting.com)

Gordon’s swimsuit design comprises of 14 parts separately printed and fused together to get the final garment. The total production time was 70-90 hours. Definitely not something for mass production right now, but the future will see faster printers and easier 3D conversion techniques to improve the speed. This year, Paris Fashion Week saw the unveiling of a completely wearable dress that prints in one single folded piece. Created by designers Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg using Nervous System’s 4D printing system and produced at Shapeway’s New York City factory, the dress comprises of thousands of panels connected by hinge joints, which adjust to the body shape as it is worn.

(Image Source: http://www.shapeways.com)

Using Kinematics – Nervous System’s 4D printing system that creates complex, foldable forms composed of modules – designers Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg created a completely wearable dress that prints in one single folded piece. It is made of thousands of panels connected by hinge joints and fluidly folds and conforms to the body as it is worn.

Fashion design student Danit Peleg has created another wave by designing a collection without even having knowledge of additive printing, which is the technology on which 3D printers presently work. Her collection of dresses, tops and skirts have contemporary lines and look like clothes that can be worn. Although it took her 2000 hours to create the entire collection, she has raised interesting questions about whether the future of fashion will pass on to the masses or remain in the hands of select brands as it is today.

(Image Source: http://www.sculpteo.com)

Kristina Dimitrova, whose Interlaced show brings together pioneers from the technology frontiers of fashion, believes that the fashion industry is increasingly accepting the embrace of technology and will see the two entwine in the future. Already major accessories brands like Heart & Noble and Exocet are featuring 3D printed creations, while Electroloom, another brand at the forefront of 3D printing, is in the process of printing fabric that can be directly used for garments. As designers start using 3D technology, manufacturers would look at ways to create more breathable wearable materials, says Shapeways’ Duanne Scott.

The technology implementation itself is very interesting. The core of 3D printing technology is known as AM or Additive Manufacturing. This involves adding layers upon layers of material to form the 3D shape, based on the 3D diagram or design provided, which is created from the sketches. Within AM a variety of techniques can be used to achieve different results for different materials. The various AM techniques include:

– Stereolithography (SLA): using liquid photopolymer resins and UV light

– Selective Laser Sintering (SLS): using non-metallic powdered laser sintering material

– Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS): similar to SLS, using metals

– Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM): using liquid metal extrusion through tiny nozzles

– Polyjet: spraying through multiple nozzles forming layers, and

– Binder Jetting: spraying liquid polymer to bind powdered material

(Source: http://www.shapeways.com )

This is extremely useful for rapid prototyping of designs and allows designers to see what the final product would look like in a matter of hours.
Why would new generation fashion designers be enamored with a technology that is still a few years away from mass adoption? The potential of its applications is enormous, and it can speed up the ready-to-wear fashion market significantly. Another key element is the fact that while customization of couture involves significant cost, it is next to nothing for 3D printing since it only involves modifications at the design level, without affecting material utilization or consumption.

However, the challenge that 3D technology faces is the question of potential counterfeiting. Since 3D technology recreates a shape, it is easy to replicate a design by a brand and pass it off as the original. Though the current capability to copy and mass produce using this technology is limited, its adoption in mainstream fashion will simultaneously raise the counterfeiting issue as well.

While these questions will continue to arise as every new technology makes its presence felt, 3D printing promises to bring new life to fashion design and the industry as a whole. With the parallel growth of technology in areas such as wearables, we might soon be wearing entire devices printed to our specifications and measurements. This is an exciting space to watch and new developments are expected to accelerate in coming days, even though it may be some time before 3D printed clothes actually reach critical mass and therefore become available to customers.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion, the freelance fashion design studio for multiple product designing in apparels that caters to start-up fashion labels and growing fashion brands with a diverse portfolio of design services. She is a member of the Cherie Blair Foundation’s Women Entrepreneurship Program and has over a decade of fashion industry experience. Twitter , Instagram , Pinterest

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Top 5 Wearable Technology Adoptions by the Fashion Industry

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concepts, creative, fabric, fashion, flexible LCD screen, freelance fashion designer, Intimacy 2.0 by Studio Roosegard, Lady Gaga’s bubble dress, O2’s phone fashion accessories by Sean Miles, Philip Treacy, responsive clothing, technology, trends

The last post on the merging of technology with fashion talked about responsive clothing, and there have been many more innovations taking place since then, with a number of collaborations emerging between tech companies and fashion labels. While these are more about incorporating fashion into technology, here I’d like to showcase some of the examples of fashion incorporating technology to deliver designs that are truly awesome.

The LCD Coat  (Image courtesy www.planetdtv.com)

Dave Forbes first created this masterpiece to be worn at Burning Man (an art event), and it represents the path of fashion as technology gets added on. The coat is made up of a flexible LCD screen capable of creating video images like a walking signboard, when connected to a phone or iPad. Imagine sports fans displaying their team logo, and then changing the display to represent their favourite band when they go off to a concert!

Intimacy 2.0 by Studio Roosegard (Image courtesy Studio Roosegard)

Daan Roosegaarde created a dress that changes from opaque to nearly transparent as the wearer’s pulse increases, signifying attraction to the person in proximity. The dress is made out of electronically charged foil which changes with the level of electricity, determined by the wearer’s heartbeat. While this is a potentially embarrassing concept (imagine suddenly finding yourself on display – the more embarrassed you get, the more transparent the dress becomes!), the technology could be adapted in many ways to help change form and silhouette depending on external stimulation.

Lady Gaga’s bubble dress (Image courtesy www.becauseiamfabulous.com)

Lady Gaga left a trail of bubbles – literally – when she wore this dress made up entirely of bubble-machines that just covered her modesty under a soapy cloud. Soon, we could see a number of innovations along this line.

O2’s phone fashion accessories – Sean Miles  (Images courtesy O2 Recycle)

Designer Sean Miles worked with telecom company O2 on their recycling initiative to create a range of accessories with mobile devices in them: handbags, shoes, gloves are all recycled with phones built-in to create a range of unique devices. The future of wearable fashion this definitely promises to be.

Kinetic LED Hat by Philip Treacy  (Images courtesy www.fashioningtech.com)

Philip Treacy and Moritz Waldemeyer created this unique collection of headwear for the Philip Treacy collection in 2013. Using a set of rotating LED lamps, the headgear creates a halo effect.

Have you seen any new innovations in fashion that incorporates wearable technology in the recent past, or created some yourself? Do post your comments to us below, and we’d love to incorporate them.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion, the first virtual design studio that caters to new and upcoming fashion design labels with a diverse portfolio of design services. She is a member of the Cherie Blair Foundation’s Women Entrepreneurship Program and has over a decade of fashion industry experience with international labels and start-ups.

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Cutting Edge Trends in the Fashion Design Industry – Zero Waste Fashion

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apparels, blog, fashion blog, fashion designers, fashion history, freelance fashion designer, pattern, Siddhartha Upadhyaya’s DPOL (Direct Pattern On Loom, sustainability, tech pack, technology, Virtual Fashion Design Studio, zero waste, Zero Waste Design, Zero Waste Manufacturing

As the fashion industry evolves and adapts to the evolving norms of environmental sustainability, new ways and means of reducing waste and increasing recyclability of clothing are being developed. Sustainability efforts have been focused on key areas like reducing fiber loss, yarn loss, fabric wastage and recycling materials for new garments.

Standard designs with cutting result in approximately 15 to 20 per cent of fabric wastage, resulting in millions of tons of garbage that typically ends up in landfills every year. To reduce this, designers came up with the concept of designing garments to ensure minimal or nil wastage of the fabric. The techniques to do this are called pre-consumer zero waste techniques. The main categories into which they fall are zero waste design and zero waste manufacturing.

Holly McQuillan – Kimono Twist dress – Image courtesy : http://goo.gl/Nh3zXi

Holly McQuillan – Kimono Twist dress pattern plotting – Image courtesy : http://goo.gl/Nh3zXi

In Zero Waste Design, the pattern maker cuts a pattern in such a way within the structure of the fabric so that there is no scrap of fabric unutilized. New York’s Parsons the New School for Design – the setting of the famous “Project Runway” series has launched a course on Zero waste fashion design and international zero waste fashion designers such as Mark Liu (England), Susan Dimasi (Australia) Julian Roberts (England) and Yeohlee Teng (Malaysia) are working to bring the trend into mainstream fashion. While creating patterns like jigsaw puzzles (Mark Liu’s “jigsaw cut”) which leave no cutting margins is one approach, the other is to drape the fabric and then decide where to tuck, cut and stitch the folds and layers to eliminate fabric loss, like David Andersen. The challenge lies in the fact that zero waste design turns the entire process of fashion design upside down. The standard approach in fashion is to create design illustrations and sketches, present these to a patternmaker who then creates the patterns for manufacturing. Here, the designer has to start with the pattern and then work backwards to determine what designs can accommodate. Holly McQuillan’s Kimono twist dress is a great example of applying zero waste design.

Zero Waste Manufacturing is done at the manufacturing stage to eliminate waste material cut-off. While techniques like Indian fashion designer and technologist Siddhartha Upadhyaya’s DPOL (Direct Pattern On Loom)- which creates the required panels directly in weaving the fabric, thereby eliminating all waste from cutting – are gaining ground, these are yet to reach mainstream production as the investment required in machine modification and retooling is tremendous, preventing commercial large-scale ventures from venturing into this area. An alternative has been to ensure the use of cut-offs in the construction of other garments, thereby ensuring that the combined patterns of two or more designs result in a zero waste production process. Other designers like Daniel Silverstein use the leftover cut-offs as appliques and embellishments to the garment, ensuring not a scrap is wasted.

Mark Liu’s Zero-Waste Designs – Image courtesy: http://goo.gl/oEl5LV

Another widely debated way (and according to the industry, one of the simplest to implement) is the reuse of old garments to create new designs. This is known as post-consumer zero waste, and involves the re-cutting, shaping and stitching of old fabrics to create new garments. Portions of garments recycled through a waste collection system are purchased by manufacturers to create their new designs. Denim manufacturers are among the first to promote the reuse of old garments to develop new ones, given the life and durability of the fabric. This is another way of extending the life of the garment and reducing waste. This method too faces hurdles in terms of mass-managing the way old garments are collected and recycled, but retailers like Wal-Mart are looking for solutions.

So how should a designer go about creating a zero waste design? Designer Zada Anditon offers some useful tips, as does Timo Rissanen. The biggest fundamental change for any designer is to get the mind-set right from the beginning. By working backwards from the fabric to developing the final design illustration requires a change in thinking from traditional designing and can be a long and arduous process.

Designers have to break the mold of their thinking process in order to design clothes that are truly zero-waste. But with an increasing effort towards better environmental sustainability, the trend should see increasing traction in coming years.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer, Sourcing and Manufacturing Consultant helping fashion brands to plan, design and develop new collections with small quantity garment manufacturing. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest Instagram

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Growing demand for functional wear garments.

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antibacterial garments, apparels, bio-sensing garments, blog, business, clothing, compression garments, fabric, fashion blog, fashion designers, freelance fashion designer, functional wear, garments, pattern, performance clothing, pressure garments, protective clothes, sports functional garments, tech pack

Functional clothing is that evolutionary sphere of the textiles market, when the simple merchandise crosses all boundaries of just being the cover for the body. On the contrary, functional clothing has invaded into the zones of medicine, biotechnology, physics, computing etc. A variety of functional clothing includes protective, medical and sports clothing.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/PYQGYN
Title: Functional wears for breast feeding mom

According to the experts, promoting traditional garments, developing functional wears, reducing the use of toxic chemicals and digging deeper into the arena of functional wears are the four major work fronts of any leading designer label today.

Amongst the new trends, one is of the emergence of performance clothing which has been fueled by latest advancements and breakthroughs. Though originally developed for military purpose, performance clothing is now available for everyone and is also incorporated in sports wears.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/ynJ8Ft
Title: to keep cool

Next is environmental hazard protective clothes that protect the skin from heat rays, acid rains, pollution etc. They are critically designed to protect the skin against the extreme elements of the atmosphere.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/TwHgvC
Title: Performance Wears

Then we have biological, chemical and radiation hazard protective. They protect against indigestion, skin contact to hazardous chemicals, toxic gases and other radioactive particulate matter.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/HpFBgV
Title: Performance clothing

Injury protective, therapeutic and rehabilitative functional wear is another useful dimension where the garments protect from slash, cuts etc. These dresses are pressure garments and they help against lymphatic and venal disorders.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/P30yMW
Title: Protective Wears

Apart from healing, there is another branch called bio-sensing. They monitor the body parameters like heart beat, blood oxygenation, body temperature etc.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/MKvmk5
Bio-sensing garments that checks the heart beat of the wearer

Then of course we have sports functional garments which help in enhancing the performance and shape the body for enhanced appearance.

Then lastly we have apparels for special needs like for elderly, infants and disabled. They are specially made for people with special needs. These innovations in the recent era have changed the role of garments and have made them to be more than just clothes to cover the body.

What do you think about these intelligent innovations? Sound off in the comments section.

All that you need to know about Digital Printing.

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apparels, blog, business, colors, creative, digital printing, dyes, fabric, fashion, fashion blog, fashion designers, freelance fashion designer, garments, print screen, printing techniques, Supriya Ghurye, technology, trends

This era has been the witness of some of the greatest innovation and digital printing is one of them. Also Christina Binkley acknowledged, in the Wall Street Journal by saying that it is allowing designers to innovate while “beefing up their brands”. According to many, digital printing is not just another brand new innovation of the century rather it’s becoming more and more recognizable and indispensable for the fashion world.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/1P0CYG
Title: Digital printing

Director of Operations of the New York and Los Angeles based digital printer First2Print, Danielle Locastro says that the digital printing is enabling creative  young people to get their ideas on the canvas.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/eLUxIZ
Title: Digital Printing

Even today designers are relying on the digital printing technology tools like adobe Photoshop and illustrator. Earlier if an average designer wanted to put any idea on the fabric, then he’d have to go through the large yardage of fabrics and he’d have to meet them up for rotary or flatbed screen painting. But now with the advent of digital printing there is no minimum requisite for yardage of cloth nor do we need flatbed rollers. In contrast digital printing specializes in small runs like three to 300 yard runs.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/4JMgR4
Title: Saves resources too

There are actually two types of people who are interested in the new and advanced digital printing and who will actually be benefit from it, first being the major design company who needs to produce a prototypes and second being the average designer for the economic and other obvious reasons. Since digital printing works in a whoosh so it is really less tedious and lesser time consuming to produce merchandise in any required quantities.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/I8Tzsq
Title: Flattering looks

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/I6GQ1n
Title: Flashy and attractive prints

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/q0cciL
Title: Couture printing

The other major benefactor from this novel painting technique is the new or high-end couture designers and companies mainly because digital fabric printing is possible for short production run . So the products that fit into this category are posh and high end and that’s where a major explosion in the fashion world can be seen, says Locastro.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/Vw4c8f
Title: Colorful vests

What do you think about the rising status of digital printing? Is it a yay or nay for you? Do tell me in the comments section.

Responsive Clothing

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Anouk Wipprecht, apparels, bio-feedback, creative, Daan Roosegaarde, Dave Forbes, fabric, fashion blog, fashion illustrations, fashion innovation, freelance fashion designer, Intimacy 2.0, responsive clothing, technology, Technosensual, Video Coat, Ying GAO

With so many technical advancements in the radar in the fashion world, it’s hard to say from which direction the next technology is likely to come.  Amidst all these innovations, the talk of the town is responsive clothing. These are like a highly sensitive bio-feedback instruments which give the response to the person who wears them with one exception, these are clothes.

Like Ying GAO, who created an entire fashion collection of interactive clothing which responses to their environment. Her designs were displayed at the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec. The intelligent couture displayed were a frock that puffed in and out when a visitor breathes in a nearby microscope. Two other dresses called Playtime blurred and shimmered respectively in response to the flashy cameras.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/Ckhqaj
Responsive clothing by Ying GAO

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/38RMN5
Intelligent Couture

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/HqeIM6
Ying Gao’s Collection

Also ‘Technosensual: Where Fashion Meets Technology’, an event which displayed some of very technologically heavy electronics by curator and fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht. One of his dresses uses sensors to change from opaque to transparent to increase the intimacy between the wearer and the persons around him.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/s5DmIh
Technosensual

Image courtesy: http://goo.gl/vjOVvk
Awesome Innovations at the Technosensual

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/vsNivt
Wow! Designs

Daan Roosegaarde also created a similar dress that he named Intimacy 2.0. This dress is triggered by heart rate sensors and proximity. It transforms from opaque to transparent and vice-versa when the wearer gets hot and bothered.

Another example of mind-blowing innovation is Video Coat. Created by Dave Forbes to wear it during the Burning Man, an annual art event, but it nevertheless rose to fame.  Essentially it’s a giant wearable LED television which works when plugged into an iPod or a DVD payer.  It needs a 12V batter to power and is a marvelous example of creating spectacle on stage.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/3fXdoB
Wearable T.V

How do you like these new technical clothes? 

Eco Fabrics made out of Milk,Tea and Coffee Beans!

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Anke Domaske, coffee beans fabric, dairy products, eco fabrics, fashion blog, freelance fashion designer, innovation, kombucha fabric, milk fabric, OMilch, Suzanne Lee, Tea fabric, The fashion industry

The fashion industry these days, seems to be cleaning itself by creating various environment friendly alternatives. Fashion designers have started a crusade to change the image of apparel industry which is considered to be one of the dirtiest industry. There are mainly two reasons. Firstly the cotton crops and synthetic fibers inflict the environment and secondly the outdated machinery and manufacturing methods which is used for dyeing of the fabric creates water pollution and other environment hazards. According to the United States Energy transmission, the fashion industry is the fifth largest contributor of CO2 in the atmosphere. The consumers are now gradually becoming aware and are saying no to these hazardous fabrics and other age-old techniques. That’s why the designers are compelled to create fabrics that are eco-friendly as well as harmless to the environment.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/bWZjXU
Coffee Beans fabric

This year’s New York Fashion Week displayed the inclination of designers to create fabrics out of food, bear bottles, develop air dye techniques and smart tailoring methods.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/ZUnacP
Fabric made out of coffee beans

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/pWKYot
EcoFabric

Conventionally in our homes – milk, tea and coffee stay together but this technical era has tried to use it to make the fashion industry more sustainable. So a German microbiology-student-turned-designer Anke Domaske used dairy products to create an “Eco Milk Fiber” called OMilch. Another such technical pioneer slash sport clothing crusader is a company called Virus who has devised a method to use recycled dairy products to create cool apparel. Suzzanne Lee is one such designer striving to make eco fabric out Kombucha which is a type of fermented tea with the help of “symbiotic ‘colony’ of bacteria and yeast”.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/Sxxa6T
Kombucha: Fermented Black tea also now used as a fabric

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/M9eJDD
Recycled Fabric

All these innovations have set the stage for new and credible eco-fibers which are changing the social scenario.  Standards are ensured to harvest the raw materials already available with us so that each person who is working in this polluting fashion world can provide best green services.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/nUFMmm
Zoom the fabric-Coffee fabric

What is your opinion? Sound off in the comments section.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer, Sourcing and Manufacturing Consultant helping fashion brands to plan, design and develop new collections with small quantity garment manufacturing. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest Instagram

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Innovation in fashion industry processes : Smart Tailoring

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apparels, blog, business, colors, consumption, creative, fabric, fashion blog, freelance fashion designer, leadtime, pattern, patterns, Siddhartha Upadhyaya, Smart, Supriya Ghurye, tailoring

For a very long time designers are trying to add new and green innovative elements to lure the customers. They are  also looking  to join the organic revolution taken up so fanatically by the fashion industry in large scale. Recently we were introduced with a concept which recycled milk and coffee beans and dairy products to produce fabrics. Now this new trend known as Direct Panel on Loom technology or smart tailoring is gaining its ground.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/0ocraf
Smart Tailoring-Eco friendly way to look good

Smart Tailoring to look fabulous as well
Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/JEd56a

Although Smart Tailoring is a not a new trend to the world as it was created earlier by an Indian designer Siddhartha Upadhyaya to increase the efficiency of fabric by as much as 15%.  Also the lead-time, which is the time taken to manufacture an article including queue time, set-up, time run time etc is reduced by at least 50%. This factor has considerably increased the allure of this newly innovated technology as more garments can be produced which equals to profit for the producers.

Saving time, Saving money
Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/KoFPzl

It’s for this reason that this technique has become so popular that it out shined every other brain-stormed technique on the ramp of the recent held London Fashion Week.

Smart Tailoring on the runways
Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/Nq8gZx

Smart Tailoring attracting everyone
Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/JhFTss

When a loom is attached to a computer then the data such as its color, pattern or size gets registered into the computer on its own. After entering the information the loom does the math and estimates the exact number of pieces needed. Then rest of the work like weaving, fabric cutting and pattering can be done in a considerably lesser time. Not only does this method save energy by as much as 70-80 percent but it also reduces immense amount of waste.

That’s the reason the fashion world is so much in love with this new trend. What is your opinion? Will this be hot or not? Sound off in the comments section.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer, Sourcing and Manufacturing Consultant helping fashion brands to plan, design and develop new collections with small quantity garment manufacturing. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest Instagram

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Innovation in fashion industry processes : Part 1- Air Dying

Tags

air dyeing, apparels, dyeing, eco friendly processes, fashion, fashion blog, freelance fashion designer, garments, innovation, sustainability, technology

The lack of innovation in the fashion industry is apparent by the steps the big brands are taking to revolutionize their products. Recently Lewis created the buzz in the market by creating water less jeans that require 96% less water to wash.  Yet another mind blowing technology innovated to save water is Air Dying. This method of air dying fabrics uses air instead of water to pound clothes. Air replaces water to penetrate dyes inside the fibers and it also requires lesser force to dry since water becomes too heavy on the fabrics to later rinse and dry.

Hazardous dying

Apparel industry actually requires a lot of innovation that’s why critiques are quite happy with the technology of Air Dying fabrics. This technology though limited to US and to synthetic materials, can be a big breakthrough for the world in the days to come.  Fashion industry has a big hand in polluting water as each colored fabric requires about 100 gallons of water to dye, in the traditional ways.

Rivers get badly polluted due to industrial waste

The bad implications of marine life are another side effect of this water dying. Thus Air Dying fabrics did really change the face of the fashion industry, in eco-friendly way. Apart from Air Dying fabrics, many other revolutions are required today to make the fashion industry, a sustainable one. There is an increasing need of waste disposal. There are thousands of garments cut and designed every day, not each of them is used and most of them are thrown away in the big bins.

Large bins storing waste cloths

SO what do you think can be the ways in which fashion designers can add a little innovation in their work and save the planet?