TEDnesday Talks: "Forget Shopping, Soon You'll Download Your New Clothes"

Printing your own clothes: it couldn't be more... 'thimble'?

At Student Edge, we like to keep ourselves up to date with all the latest innovative ideas in the world of technology, education and design. We also love puns. So, over Wednesday lunch, we watch TED talks. Thus: TEDnesday.

This week, we watched fashion design student Danit Peleg speak about how she created a 3-D printed clothing collection. (This was recorded in December of 2015).

Check it out!

Let's talk, TED.

Now here is a TED talk that pulls at the thread of future possibilities. Danit explains how she 3-D prints her own clothes and what challenges she faced printing a collection for her final year of fashion school. She discusses the printing process, what new synthetic materials are on the horizon and what it might mean to be able to purchase clothing that's been personalised to your individual measurements. Danit also manages to weave in a couple of laughs...

This talk did spark an hour long argument with the Student Edge IT team about the limitations of 3-D printing but I feel like we eventually decided a future where clothing is home printed is definitely a possibility (if home printing was made affordable enough and the process of printing would not be so complex as to only be achieved by tech-savvy fashion designers).

The fashion industry, like any industry that deals in physical goods, has always had its challenges. Aside from a lack of international standardisation of clothing sizes, there are huge costs associated with clothing storage, transport and inventory management between retail clothing stores. My own wardrobe is a testament to another challenge for clothing sales: clothes eventually go out of style.

With the rise of home 3-D printers, will the fashion industry eventually cut out the middle man? One by one, major industries are slowly digitising their products. Music used to be produced solely on CDs, films were once sold on DVDs, and Student Edge deals used to be redeemed on a plastic card rather than their amazing deals app (#shameless plug).

What happens if clothing companies' templates become purchasable online? Will they end up saving on retail store overheads or does it just open them up for the same level of piracy that the music industry has had to deal with? This is an amazing TED talk that leaves us wondering what the future of fashion might entail. Could the home printing process be made simple enough?

What other challenges or opportunities might result from people printing their own clothes? What other industries could be digitised with 3-D printing? Share your thoughts below!