In this story – written for The Interline, based on her own academic research – recent Masters graduate Benita Menezes presents a young professional’s perspective on how deeper adoption of tools and workflows that are still not common in-industry (and even less common in education) could create positive change directly and indirectly.
Introduction
There has never been a more important moment for the fashion industry, and its next generation, to focus on sustainability – and on how to enable it in innovative ways. While the industry has long been self-regulating when it comes to environmental and ethical practices, a slew of new regulations in the EU, UK, and US are set to change the fashion and textile industry’s status quo – for the better.
The laws intend to bring about more transparency, provide better protection for supply chain workers, and are intended to forcibly reduce fashion businesses’ carbon emissions. While these regulations are still being refined and adopted, there is already much activity underway that is contributing to better sustainability, and is facilitated by 3D/DPC technology – with one of the main benefits being the ability to digitally render prototypes and samples, so that designers can experiment with different designs and perform iterations without the need for physical materials, reducing resource consumption.
On the consumer-facing side, high-quality product images rendered out from 3D platforms can also enable consumers to shop with more confidence and accuracy, meaning that the possibility for returns is mitigated – along with the environmental harm they cause.
But this is all relatively new and, as I understand it, not evenly-distributed in the industry. And even against that benchmark, it’s important to remember that fashion schools are not operating at the same pace as the industry. This means that fashion students in education today will need to seek out ways to make sure 3D technology is incorporated into their curriculum – if possible – or else will need to use their own time to upskill.
Based on my own experience, it will be critical for fashion students, who go on to be employees or business owners in the fashion industry, are able to not only work with 3D tools, but can also ensure they are integrated effectively into workflows and supply chains in a way that can make an impact when it comes to sustainability. This will become more and more critical as fashion’s stakeholders – brands, retailers, suppliers, and manufacturers – accept 3D/DPC more and more into their workflows.
Background
To grasp my perspective on this topic, it’s crucial to understand my background. Digital fashion or 3D fashion wasn’t a deliberate choice for me, rather, it was something I found myself thrown into. As a naturally creative individual with a particular interest in fashion, pursuing an undergraduate degree in the field seemed like the obvious path for me.
However, as an Indian girl, I was steered towards STEM courses, particularly due to my proficiency with computers. Ironically, I overlooked this aspect of my skill set as it didn’t strike me as particularly creative. My father excelled in the same area, but during a rebellious phase, I never considered pursuing technology as a path for myself.
My skills came together when, after my undergraduate course in fashion design, I was hired by a 3D design company, and I entered the world of technology and was surprised by its opportunity for creativity. I certainly feel lucky to have secured a job that allowed me to use both my creativity and the part of me that identified more with my dad and my affinity for technology.
My Masters Degree built on my undergraduate and work experience, and I also chose to focus on another crucial angle: sustainability in fashion and how to achieve it. And as someone who knew that fusion of two seemingly unrelated things had the potential to create something remarkable, I wondered how fashion can achieve sustainability through technology?
I knew that I would need to draw from my own experiences, alongside learning from industry professionals to find the answer to my question. One answer that I did have, was why I had chosen to focus on sustainability in fashion. I see it as a crisis that is economic, environmental, and humanitarian and can no longer be ignored by any industry. As for my focus on 3D technology, I noticed that the pandemic was the catalyst for a major digital push from brands and retailers; one that has continued to progress with each year that goes by.
I figured that these two evolving topics and how they interconnect would be interesting as well as important.
My final dissertation investigated the integration of 3D sampling technologies in fashion firms. I wanted to know: to what extent can 3D technology be integrated to effectively make an impact on the problem of insufficient sustainability in fashion? And what could assist the stakeholders in the fashion industry so that 3D technology might be quickly and widely accepted? To reach my conclusion, I examined stakeholder perceptions, reviewed prior research, and created integration criteria for design, manufacturing, and post-production.
The approach
I began by reading research papers. There was a wealth of information that encompassed many different angles, and I soon realised that one could look at sustainability from a variety of ways. It was not an easy task to pick just one that would be within my power to tackle and produce a research paper out of. In order to do this, I created a framework encompassing important subtopics, consisting of technological factors, social and cultural elements, regulatory and legal considerations, design and production influences, stakeholder dynamics, economic components, and environmental factors.
Using this framework, I saw how I could write about sustainability and technology as a collaboration; one that had the potential to push the fashion industry forward towards more sustainable practices through innovative business models and transformed consumption patterns.
Through my research, I came across The Interline and found its Digital Product Creation (DPC) Report 2023 particularly informative. The report is a comprehensive look at how DPC and 3D technology has woven itself into the fabric of the fashion industry.
As that report showed, numerous brands, retailers, and suppliers now rely on DPC-ecosystem tools as part of their daily operations. One way that DPC is moving the needle on sustainability is the uptake by some of fashion’s biggest names in using DPC for substituting physical sampling with digital alternatives.
And that uptake is by no means guaranteed; I first learned about 3D technology during my first job at CLO Virtual Fashion. At first, it was intimidating to me, but soon I began to enjoy working on the software, so much so that I tried learning new related softwares in my own time as well. From my work and my own experimentation with different softwares, it was clear to me that 3D technology is a transformative and disruptive force, revolutionising the conventional processes of product design and development.
Holly McQuillan from the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education sums it up well writing that this technology holds the capacity to generate garment prototypes at various stages of the design cycle, spanning from initial conception to ultimate production. The implementation of 3D technology thus has the benefit of decreased time spent and expenses incurred in garment development, as well as enhancing the eventual product’s calibre.
After thorough research, I was ready to examine the cross-section between 3D technology and sustainability, and consider how they could both be applied to meet the needs of the fashion industry.
Findings
Incorporating Sustainability into DPC Strategies
My ultimate conclusion: while DPC can support a brand’s sustainability plan, especially in terms of reducing physical sampling, it is only one component of a much bigger ecosystem. The article Hearts And Minds: How DPC Is Slowly, But Surely, Becoming Standard Practice – And What That Means For the Supply Chain featured in The Interline’s 2023 DPC Report further defends this theory. A successful DPC ecosystem will span each point in the fashion value chain and will require high levels of interoperability – something that is still imperfect as yet.
Once DPC is able to be used business-wide (and even with external manufacturers) sustainability will be that much easier to facilitate with less physical sampling, as well as more on-demand manufacturing, and better consumer buying practices will lead to reduced waste and overproduction. By integrating sustainability into DPC strategies, fashion brands can prioritise the use of eco-friendly materials, minimise energy consumption during production, and design products with end-of-life considerations in mind, such as recyclability or biodegradability.
Multi-Dimensional Applications of 3D Technology
Here, I examined the diverse applications of 3D technology, beyond the scope of supply chain and manufacturing processes, and found that brands and retailers are incorporating 3D designs to enhance product pages and marketing materials, as well as creating digital twins. Regarding the latter, these virtual duplicates assist organisations in reducing the materials used in product design and also improve the ability to track the product’s lifecycle, thereby reducing environmental waste. Another piece from The Interline’s 2023 DPC Report, Virtual Stores: The Ultimate Endpoint For 3D Assets, gave me industry insight into how virtual stores play a vital role in contextualising digital assets. While 2D digital environments allow for a more in-depth exploration of 3D products, such as rotating or zooming into components, 3D digital environments offer an immersive platform for product and brand storytelling. This can also assist in product accuracy so that customer returns are reduced, mitigating the environmental damage that comes with them.
Education for Seamless Technology Adoption
My focus for this theme was on the role of education around new technologies, for both students and fashion industry professionals. The article Dancing With The Future: Emerging Technology And The Next Generation Of Creative Professionals speaks how with the ongoing influence of 3D/DPC on the fashion industry, education needs to undergo a transformative shift to include more on technology. This will be particularly important to create a reliable pool of skilled talent for fashion’s hybrid future – where professionals will need both traditional and technological skills. This is now an opportune moment for the fashion sector to endorse an alternative education model that utilises experiential learning to optimise value for both the industry and students.
Using 3D Technology for Customer Engagement and Awareness
Drawing on insights from the multi-dimensional applications of 3D technology, I researched how brands aim to harness 3D technology to its full potential. This includes including their consumers into how they use technology and being transparent in the way it contributes to their sustainability as a fashion business. The idea is to build a sense of trust in consumers as they understand the often opaque journey that products follow- from design all through marketing. Engaging technology experiences on e-commerce sites, as well as other marketing campaigns, can raise awareness around sustainable consumption, recycling, and greenwashing. This type of engaging experience is mentioned in Real-Time 3D: The New Frontier In Fashion And Luxury as part of The Interline’s 2023 DPC Report. There has been a surge in the crossover between the fashion and gaming industries in recent years, and there is a widespread prediction that fashion and gaming solution platforms will eventually provide integrated ecosystems with shared assets and file formats. This integration will not allow designers from both realms to coexist and seamlessly share digital assets, but could be used for optimal audience reach.
The Importance Of High Quality Digital Assets
This ties in with the previous section, but drives home the point emphasised in The Steady March To Showcase Quality Digital Assets, in The Interline’s DPC Report 2023, as fashion pivots towards digital sales and fashion business grow their DPC ecosystems, the generation of high-quality renderings on a large scale becomes crucial. In both consumer-facing and B2B scenarios, these renderings need to be a virtual representation that faithfully mirrors the physical product.
Other key findings
Some other important findings from my research for the integration of technology into any sustainable strategy for fashion enterprises are:
- Consider using external consultancy services to gradually work with the design team to adapt to a technological workflow.
- Time commitment consideration in every quarter to count for the backlog in the adoption of 3D technology.
- Consideration towards department-wise adoption instead of entire organisation adoption should be given.
- Developing system changes to include 3D sampling into the PLM system, considering joint systems to measure details such as fabric consumption and trim usage.
- Looking at joint consultancy services for mutual progress. Dividing the process into 3D fabrication, 2D pattern creations and finally 3D assembly done by different teams for a joint result.
- Using pattern and fabric usage statistics (provided by software platforms in use) to reduce wastage and look at the possibility of reusing pre-loved garments.
Conclusion
The next generation of fashion students will be an integral part of how brands and retailers approach their sustainability: both in strategy and in implementation. In order to do this, it will be essential to understand how to use 3D/DPC tools, and how to optimise them across design, manufacturing, and marketing.
This will come about from traditional fashion education, but a large portion will be through personal upskilling and industry experience. In this process, the next generation of fashion professionals and those currently in the industry should work together to support sustainability initiatives, and work to piece together the broader technology ecosystem in order to have the most impactful result.
Achieving a successful DPC ecosystem requires interoperability across the fashion value chain, but with every step of progress, there is a streamlining effect that leads to less waste and overproduction.
A key part of this is also generating high-quality digital assets – for the trust of stakeholders in the fashion industry, as well as for consumers. This is certainly not out of reach, and the fashion industry with its upcoming legislation, league of conscious consumers, and those in the next generation of fashion professionals focusing more on technology and its best practices, the potential for a more sustainable fashion industry is well on the way to being actualised.
It will just be in our hands as students to reach it sooner than later.
