Interview | Subscriber-Only | 3D Printing Delivers Custom Style with Less Waste
Source: Danit Peleg
The modern fashion industry has always centered on self-expression. In recent decades, however, the race to create and mass-produce trendy designs for a global consumer base has given rise to "fast fashion"—a model in which rapid apparel production, distribution, and sales eventually result in wasteful, unsustainable business practices and consumer behaviors.
Evidence of these practices and behaviors includes the approximately 92 million tons of textile waste created each year by the fashion and apparel industry, the doubling of apparel production between 2000 and 2015 alone, the 36 percent decrease in the duration of garment use, and the 85 percent of textiles that are unrecycled and deposited in landfills.
Over the past 10 years, 3D printing fashion designer, inventor, researcher, and TED speaker Danit Peleg has carved a unique path through these issues.
"An urgent need exists to rethink the entire process, from design, materials, and manufacturing to distribution and recycling," Peleg laments. "I see 3D printing as a path to increase consumers' access to more unique and personalized looks while reducing the waste involved in their production and distribution."
For Peleg, this journey has come one experiment and one insight at a time.
Danit Peleg is a fashion designer known for creating the world’s first 3D-printed fashion collection made entirely with FDM printers. She started the 3D Printed Fashion Lab 10 years ago to research and develop how tech and design can make fashion more personal and sustainable.
She has been involved in multiple research projects and is now leading new R&D that combines AI, soft 3D-printed textiles, and sustainable materials. She has already invented two patents, and her goal is to make her vision of 3D printable, digital fashion more useful and ready for the real world. Danit is a TED speaker, was named one of Europe’s Top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes, and was listed on the BBC’s 100 Women.
Incremental Innovation
In 2015, Peleg decided to conclude her fashion school experience with a 3D-printed fashion collection, despite never having used the technology. The move was a success, putting her on the map overnight as a pioneer in 3D printing, landing her a speaking spot with TED, and prompting a call from the head of the creative committee for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
"[The head of the Olympics creative committee] asked if I could make a 3D printed dress for a special segment in the opening ceremonies involving a dancer with 3D printed prosthetic legs," Peleg recalls. "Of course, I said, 'Yes.'"
Working from Tel Aviv, with the dancer in Colorado and the creative committee in Brazil, Peleg sent the dancer a link to an app that converted her photos into a 3D model with her exact measurements. Peleg then entered the measurements in her software, where she built the dress virtually and showed it to the dancer and the committee to get their input—all without ever meeting in person. When the time for the performance came, the 3D-printed dress fit the dancer perfectly and became a memorable part of a stunning Olympic moment.
This experience also helped Peleg understand that the entire process, from measurement to design to collaboration to production, could be digital, regardless of geography—a critical piece of her vision for more sustainable fashion.
Over the next nine years, a series of incremental discoveries, insights, and improvements followed to realize this vision.
Critical Software Partnerships
After her star-making turn at the 2016 Olympics, Peleg collaborated with Gerber Technology—a leading provider of software and manufacturing systems and the developer of one of the world's most popular tools for creating and simulating garment patterns—to enable the software to convert garment designs to be compatible with 3D printers. This included an extension for her website that would, for example, allow a user to customize the lining and color of a jacket or even add their own name to it.
More Familiar and More Sophisticated Fabrics
Much of the feedback Peleg received after the 2016 Olympics revolved around providing fabrics that felt like familiar materials, such as cotton and wool. Because her 3D printer at the time had a relatively small bed and only a single extruder, it was incapable of simulating these kinds of textures.
"I started the journey to find a larger, more sophisticated printer," Peleg says. "I finally found the right team in Croatia to build the printer of my dreams, with four extruders running at the same time. Now, I have no limitations. The fabric can be super complex or super basic. The printer can create very complex geometries, with intricate layers of different colors, materials, and textures. And it's four times faster."
This new printer can even incorporate cotton and wool for fabrics that are lighter, more flexible, softer, and more familiar to consumers.
These improvements also allow Peleg and her team to create more sophisticated clothing that incorporates multiple types of materials to better meet consumers' needs. For example, in 2024, the team partnered with a surfing brand to create an award-winning line of board shorts that used wool to keep the fabric soft in the water while also providing grip for better performance. Side panels were specially printed to allow water to flow in and out of the shorts easily.
Minimum-Waste Clothing
With these improvements, Peleg is also approaching her goal of minimizing the waste from apparel manufacturing and driving more recycling of the materials used. "With this technology, everything I produce is meant to be part of the garment, so you don't get the waste from leftover scraps of fabric that is typical in traditional processes," she says.
Also, because everything is created on demand, the typical waste from excess inventory is eliminated. The ability to send designs digitally to be printed in any facility at any location around the world drastically reduces shipping costs and waste.
"I can email you a jacket, and you can print it wherever you are," she remarks. "So, little to no shipping cost results."
Finally, Peleg uses only renewable, recyclable materials in her apparel, which can be easily recycled after use into a new piece of clothing. "We start with recycled waste," she explains. "When we're done, we break the waste back down into pellets, and they can become something else. This is the perfect setup for a truly circular economy in which consumers are empowered to own the materials that they use."
Next Steps for 3D-Printed Fashion
As she looks toward the next stage of her journey, Peleg knows that artificial intelligence will be instrumental in increasing the speed and accuracy at which she can design and 3D print custom clothing. She also recognizes plenty of room for improvement in creating fabrics that fit seamlessly with consumers' tastes and expectations.
Ultimately, however, Peleg intends to take things one incremental improvement and insight at a time. "I don't know what the future will look like," she says. "My goal is to keep making the process smarter and more efficient, push the boundaries of materials science, and collaborate with brilliant scientists and forward-thinking brands to turn the vision of 3D-printed fashion into reality and share it with the world."
1https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/unsustainable-fashion-and-textiles-focus-international-day-zero
2https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/the-aftermath-of-fast-fashion-how-discarded-clothes-impact-public-health-and-the-environment/
3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1oKe8OaPbk.