Without a doubt 3D printing is beginning to gain some traction within the fashion industry. It has gained popularity by some of the industry’s most popular designers, and has attracted the attention of both celebrities and fashionistas from around the world. If you were to tell me that 3D printing would have made such a large impact in such a short period of time, just 2 years ago, I would have called you crazy. Evidently we are well on our way to seeing 3D printing converge with the fashion industry in a way which hasn’t been seen within the industry ever before.

For one designer who recently graduated from the Shankar College of Engineering and Design, in Israel, named Danit Peleg, this progress simply has not been enough. She wanted to kickstart the advancement of 3D printed fashion even further.

“I wanted to create a ready-to-wear collection printed entirely at home using printers that anyone can get,” Peleg explains. “I’ve spent the past year searching for the best solution, [and] I worked with leading experts in the field.”

You may recall several stories that we have done on a brilliant man named Andreas Bastian. Back in April of 2014, we broke a story about Bastian’s 3D printed mesostructured material which is 3D printed from rigid plastics, but features unique physical properties, due to its “mesostructure.” These rigid materials suddenly become flexible, bendable, and take on very interesting characteristics.

This was inspiration for 27-year-old Peleg’s textile designs, but instead of printing these structures using rigid filaments, she elected to print them out on her Witbox FDM desktop 3D printers, using flexible FilaFlex filaments.

Starting back in September of 2014, Peleg decided she would use 3D printing to create her “graduate collection” required for her Fashion Design degree at Shankar. At the time, she knew very little about 3D printing in general, so she admittedly was in for a huge challenge. Her first piece, inspired by a painting from Eugène Delacroix, called “Liberty Leading the People,” is a jacket she calls “LIBERTE.”

“I modified [the painting] so it would look like a 3D picture,” Peleg explained. “I was inspired to work with the many triangles present in the painting’s composition.”

It wasn’t until she discovered the FilaFlex material that she could actually 3D print her LIBERTE jacket exactly the way she wanted. This wasn’t enough for Peleg though, as she wanted to challenge herself even further by creating more elaborate textiles for the rest of her collection. This is when she began experimenting with Andreas Bastian’s aforementioned Mesostructured Cellular Materials. His ideas, combined with Peleg’s use of flexible filament, allowed her to create lace-like textures that she could work with in the same way other designers work with cloth fabric.

“Once I figured out how to print textiles, I was on my way to create a full collection,” explains Peleg. “It would take more than 2000 hours to print — every A4-sized sheet of textile took at least 20 hours to print — so I had to step up my printer-game, to a full fledged ‘3D-printing farm’ at home.”

Each dress in the collection took an average of 400 hours to print out. In addition she spent more time 3D printing shoes, inspired by designer Michele Badia, so that her runway models would be wearing 100% 3D printed clothing/accessories.

“This has been the most interesting year of my life,” says Peleg. “When I got started, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to make this happen, but with the help of incredible people I was able to fulfill my dream – to printed my own fashion collection. Just imagine the potential… If you’re cold, print your own jacket. Traveling with no luggage? Just print your clothes in the hotel room. Will we soon be able to design, share and print our own clothes directly from home?”

That’s a question we’ll leave up to you to decide the answer for, but it certainly appears as though we are moving in this direction. What do you think about Peleg’s unique 3D printable fashion, all of which can be printed at home? Discuss in the Danit Peleg Fashion Collection forum thread on 3DPB.com, and check out the photo and video below.

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