Fast fashion has dominated the fashion industry. The highly competitive market
constantly refreshes their products to encourage customers to buy more. This leads
to clothes with a short life cycle, in which many end in landfills. As society grows
more conscious, many have started to thrift and upcycle clothes. This, however, is not
a skill that everyone has. Not everyone is able to create a piece of clothing, since it
requires a lot of time and effort. What if there was a program that could create clothing
and tailor it for you? This became my main motivation for this project.
I was among those who did not know how to sew. Therefore, I spent some time getting to
know the sewing machine. I made several small items, such as a shirt and several pouches.
I made these using free patterns online. It was extremely time consuming and often tricky.
This is where computational sewing plays an important role.
I decided to use Autodesk Fusion 360 to create pattern designs. With Fusion, I was able
to create designs through Python code. I first coded a simple pencil pouch pattern, which
consisted of only rectangles. I also coded a window that would allow users to input the
dimensions of the pouch they wanted to create. This later part was the most difficult
since not much code documentation was available for me to follow. After coding the
program, I exported the file so that it could be used in the laser cutter. Cutting the
fabric took less than 30 seconds, and the edges were cut much cleaner than if they were
cut by hand.
Similarly, I coded a few more pattern designs where each one increased in complexity
and difficulty: a tote bag, a crop top, a shirt, and shoes. Calculating the dimensions
of these pieces was often hard, so I used CLO3D, a cloth modeling software, whenever
I wanted to check my work. Fusion 360, unfortunately, did not have features that could
model fabric drape. This meant that I was not able to check how the cloth pieces would
look since they would look like stiff materials. With CLO3D, however, I was able to
even import an avatar and change the avatar’s dimensions. This was extremely helpful
since this meant I would not have to find a model, get their dimensions, create a
customized piece for them and check if the calculations were done correctly.
This past summer, I was able to combine my knowledge in engineering with my interests
in environmentalism and social good. Throughout this project, I have realized that
change within the fashion industry can be made. Producing clothes should not create
harm to any human or environment. I hope to continue exploring this field and contribute
to a change in fashion at an industrial and individual level.
I would like to thank the Panaphil Foundation and Frances Velay for this opportunity,
Professor Ganapati for her mentorship, and Jackie from the MakerSpace for her
technical assistance.