3Ders' top 15 list of our favorite 3D printed dresses

Feb 25, 2016 | By Tess

3D printing has been taking the fashion world by storm with designers engaging with the technology to create jewelry, handbags, shoes, and even garments. In the aftermath of New York Fashion Week F/W 2016, where we were stunned by all the 3D printed pieces that hit the runway, we thought what better way to celebrate than to put together a list of our favorite 3D printed dresses over the past few years.

1. Dita von Teese's 3D printed dress

To start things off we thought we should pay homage to one of the first 3D printed dresses to really turn heads as it was designed for and worn by burlesque bombshell Dita von Teese. The 3D printed gown was unveiled in March of 2013 at the Ace Hotel in New York and was designed by Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti who collaborated with 3D printing service Shapeways to have the dress additively manufactured. Made up of seventeen 3D printed nylon pieces, the dress was dyed black and encrusted with over 13,000 Swarovski crystals to really make the stunning design sparkle.

2. 3D printed Parametric Sculpture Dress worn by Lady Gaga

Months later in 2013, superstar Lady Gaga reminded the world of the potentials of 3D printed fashion by rocking Studio XO’s edgy 3D printed Parametric Sculpture Dress made in association with Belgian 3D printing company Materialise. The 3D printed couture made a statement at the launch of ArtRave, her fourth headlining concert tour, and has continued to impress us up until the present. Lady Gaga has since dedicated herself to combining music, performance, and technology, which you can see here in her recent Grammy performance.

3. Iris van Herpen’s 3D printed dresses

For those of you who may not know, Dutch designer Iris van Herpen was responsible for creating the first ever 3D printed garment to be walked down the runway in 2010, a skirt and top combination called Crystallization. Since then, she has continued to create groundbreaking 3D printed designs that have been influenced by such varied natural phenomenons as magnetism, skeletons, and crystals. Iris van Herpen’s 3D printed dresses have not only pioneered 3D printing in fashion, but to this day remain at the very fore of showing the amazing potentials of 3D printed wearables.

4. threeASFOUR 3D printed dresses SS 2016

Speaking of pioneers in the 3D printed dress game, New York based fashion collective threeASFOUR has certainly made a name for itself as one of the most innovative contemporary fashion labels out there today. The label, which was founded in 2005, has been using 3D printing in their designs since 2013, and certainly got our attention earlier in 2015 as they unveiled their Spring/Summer 2016 collection which featured an intricate and delicately designed 3D printed dress.

5. threeASFOUR's F/W 2016 collection featuring two black 3D printed dresses

threeASFOUR also made headlines recently at New York Fashion Week for their Fall/Winter 2016 collection Biomimicry, a decidedly darker series of garments than their previously unveiled S/S 2016 collection. Their star pieces, two black 3D printed dresses made with extreme detail to texture and shape, were made using Stratasys’ Objet500 Connex3 3D printer, capable of multi-color, multi-material 3D printing. The pieces were absolutely stunning and reminded us what 3D printing can offer fashion designers that fabrics cannot.

6. Aiman Akhtar's LED sci-fi 3D printed dress

While we have seen a number of fashion designers break into the world of 3D printing, it is not completely uncommon for makers and 3D designers to break into the world of fashion. Aiman Akhtar is one such case, as the professional 3D modeler designed and additively manufactured this brilliant 3D printed garment. The dress, which itself looks like something out of a sci-fi film or fantasy story, combines 3D printing with other technological elements such as LED lighting and optic fiber cables for an otherworldly and dazzling effect.

7. Ohne Titel's 3D printed dress

Womenswear label Ohne Titel’s designs wowed audiences at NYFW F/W 2016 as they featured 3D printed clothes, but perhaps not in the way you’d expect. Rather than 3D print the whole garment, the designers teamed up with Shapeways to create a sort of chainmail-like textile made from 3D printing small plastic rings and closures and connecting them using a more traditional knitting technique.

8. Danit Peleg’s ready-to-wear 3d printed collection

One of last year’s most exciting 3D printed projects was Danit Peleg’s 3D printed ready-to-wear clothing collection, which she made using her own desktop 3D printer and FilaFlex filament. Though the collection consists of more than just 3D printed dresses—a jacket, and shoes were also additively manufactured—Peleg’s designs use 3D printing to create amazing textures and pieces that I would be excited to wear out.

9. Alexis Walsh’s 3D printed Spire Dress

One of our absolute favorites is Alexis Walsh’s 3D printed Spire Dress, which though admittedly is rather frugal in its skin coverage, is an excellent example of the unique creations 3D printing can enable. The 3D printed dress is made up of 400 individual 3D printed nylon pieces that are connected with small metal rings and its design was inspired by the tips of cathedral spires. The 3D printed wearable, which has been featured in 3D print shows, magazines, and music videos has most recently impressed audiences at this past NYFW.

10. Chromat’s 3D printed Adrenaline Dress

You might remember fashion label Chromat from their collaboration with Metalepsis to create edgy 3D printed jewelry, or their collaboration with Intel to create a 3D printed smart-sportsbra. Well, the innovative fashion label teamed up with Intel again in order to create the Adrenaline Dress, a 3D printed dress powered by Intel’s Curie Module that expands and retracts as the wearer’s adrenaline levels rise and fade. This of course takes us from purely 3D printed dresses into the realm of smart couture, two areas which are growing in tandem. The impressive and responsive 3D printed dress made from 3D printed panels and neoprene was unveiled at NYFW in September 2015.

11. Intel’s 3D printed smart dress

In 2014, American tech company Intel created a 3D printed dress that blew our minds. Not only was the dress 3D printed, but it possessed technology that was capable of interacting with the wearer’s brain waves that changed the color of the dress through lights embedded in it. A real wearable mood ring!

12. Xuberance 3D printed wedding dresses

Fashion is all about breaking boundaries, so when Shanghai based design studio Xuberance unveiled their two 3D printed wedding dresses last spring, we were swept off our feet. The dresses, made using SLS 3D printing technologies, combine a classic wedding gown look with the forward thinking tech aesthetic that we so love.

13. Anouk Wipprecht’s 3D printed Spider Dress

Fashiontech designer Anouk Wipprecht crawled her way onto our list with her devastatingly beautiful and impressive 3D printed robotic dress, the Spider Dress 2.0. The 3D printed garment, resembling a sort of spider exoskeleton was made using SLS technology and is also embedded with an Intel Edison chip which allows the dress to move, effectively signalling that the wearer wants space. That is, the arm-like structures at the back of the dress move in tandem with the wearer’s breath: as the breath gets more intense, the arms spread out and act more aggressively as if to say “give me space”.

14. Nervous System's Kinematics flowing 3D printed dress

For anyone who thought that 3D printed garments could only be stiff and uncomfortable, if none of the other items on the list have convinced you of their wearability, perhaps this flowing 3D printed dress designed by Nervous System will convince you. The dress was created in collaboration with Shapeways and their Kinematics Cloth 4D printing system, which allowed for the dress to be additively manufactured in one un-foldable piece, and now belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), a real triumph for 3D printed fashion.

15. Victoria’s Secret 3D printed corset

Though not strictly a dress, we still wanted to include this stunning 3D printed corset made for the Victoria Secret runway show in December 2013. The 3D printed, crystal encrusted corset was made in collaboration with Shapeways and was specially made for Victoria’s Secret Angel Lindsay Ellingson with the help of 3D scanning technologies. Unveiled just before the holidays, the corset was snow themed and was made up of intricately designed snowflake motifs.

Be sure to check out some of our other top roundups below:

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