Fashion designers have been experimenting with 3D printing for over a decade, and there have been mixed opinions about it. "The model that was wearing it hated us," Bradley Rothenberg told Wired, referring to a 3D-printed dress he presented in a 2013 fashion show. Rothenberg's dress, which was made in collaboration with fashion trio threeASFOUR, was so delicate that the model wearing it couldn't even sit down.
However, fashion designer Danit Peleg has also been experimenting with printing clothes and got really exciting results using a flexible material called FilaFlex instead of the regular plastic filaments used by most 3D printers, per The Guardian. The issue is that the garments can be extremely expensive due to how expensive 3D printers themselves are.
One big reason to invest in making 3D printed clothes mainstream is the ecological impact they may have. Fast fashion is a driver of ecological collapse and contamination. While 3D-printed clothes are made of plastic, which is extremely harmful to the environment, they can be melted and repurposed as prime material for new 3D printouts (via Refinery29). Eventually, the filaments could be made of recycled materials, making the cycle of fashion highly sustainable. In that sense, printing out clothes could become a more environmentally friendly option than the multitude of rarely repurposed fast fashion garments.
