An Israeli fashion designer proved that “forget shopping, soon we will be able to
download our clothes” (Peleg, 2015). Danit Peleg
is born in 1988 in Israel. Danit Peleg is a fashion
designer based in Tel-Aviv which created the first commercially available,
3D-printed clothing. Peleg
studied Fashion Design at
the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. Her dissertation researched
the possibility of 3D-printing clothes. In 2014, she designed her first
3D-printed jacket, the Liberate,
after a lot of experimentation with different materials and setups. After this
initial success, she created more designs to create a complete collection. After
graduating in 2015, she started her own studio, via which she provides custom,
3D-printed designs for clients. In 2016, she designed a 3D-printed dress
for Amy Purdy, who wore this dress during a dance performance during the
opening ceremony of the Paralympics of 2016. In 2017, a limited edition set of 100 Bomber jackets were created.
For $1500 apiece, clients could get their own customized jacket printed. Peleg
organized a three-day workshop on
3D-printed fashion in 2018, where 15 students from all over the world could
learn about her design process. That year she was also recognized as one of Europe's 50 most influential woman in
tech by Forbes.
The interview of Peleg in New York in December 2015, "Past few months I have been traveling for a week
at a time with only one suitcase of clothes. One day I was invited to an important
event and I want to wear something special and new for it.
So, I looked through my suitcase
and I could not find anything to wear. But, I was lucky to be at the technology conference on that day and I had
access to 3D printers. So, I quickly designed a skirt on my computer and loaded
the file on the printer. It just printed the pieces overnight, next morning I just
took all the pieces assembled them together in my hotel room and this is actually
the skirt that I’m wearing right now.
![]() |
| Add caption |
So, it was not the first time that I printed
clothes. For my senior collection at fashion design
school, I decided to try, and 3D print an entire fashion collection from my
home. The problem was that I barely knew anything about 3D printing and I had
only nine months to figure out, “how to print five fashionable looks?” I always
felt most creative when I worked from home.
I loved experimenting with new
material and I always tried to develop new techniques to make the most unique
textiles for my fashion project. I loved going to the old factories and weird stores
in search of leftovers of strange powders and weird materials and then bring
them home to experiment on it. As you probably imagine, my roommates did not
like it at all. So, I decided to move on to working with big machines one that
did not fit in my living room. I love the exact and the custom work I can do
with all kind of fashion technologies like knitting machines and laser cutting
and silk printing.
One summer break, I came here to
New York for an internship at a fashion house in Chinatown. We worked on two
incredible dresses that were 3D printed. They were amazing that you can see here.
But, I had a few issues with them. They
were made with some hard plastics and that’s why they were very breakable. The models
could not even sit in them and they got scratched from the plastics under their
arms. The designers had so much freedom to make the dresses look exactly like
they wanted but still they were dependent on big and expensive industrial
printers that were located in a lab far from their studios.
Later that year, a friend gave
me a 3D printed necklace printed using a home printer.
I knew that these printers were
very cheaper and much more accessible that the ones we used at my internship. So,
I looked at the necklace and then I thought “If I can print a necklace from
home, why not my clothes from my home, too?” I really liked the idea that I would
not have to go to the market and pick fabrics that someone else chose to sell. I
could just design them and print them directly from home. I found a small
marketspace, where I learned everything I know about 3D printing. Right away,
they literally gave me the key to the lab, so I could experiment into night,
every night.
The main challenge was to find
the right filament for printing clothes with. So, “What is a filament?”
Filament is the material you feed the printer with. I spent a month or so
experimenting with “PAL” which is a hard and scratchy breakable material. The breakthrough
came when I was introduced to Filament, which is a new kind of filament. It is
strong, yet very flexible and with it I was able to print the first garment,
the red jacket that had the word “Liberate” “Freedom” in French embedded into
it.
I chose this word because I felt
so empowered and free when I could just design a garment form my home and print
it by myself. A person easily downloads this jacket and easily change the word
to something else. For example, your name or your sweet heart’s name.
The printer’s plates are small,
so I had to piece the garment together, just like a puzzle and I wanted to
solve another challenge. I wanted to print textiles that I would use just like
regular fabrics. When I found an open-source file from an architect who
designed a pattern that I love with it. I was able to print a beautiful textile
that I would use just like a regular fabric and it actually even looks a little
bit like a lace.
So, I took this file and modified
it, changed it and played with it many kinds of versions out of it and I needed
to complete printing my collection.
So, I bought six printers to my
home and just printed 24/7 and this is actually a really slow process but let’s
remember the Internet was significantly slower 20 years ago. So, 3D printing
will also accelerate and in no time, you will be able to print a T-shirt in
your home in just a couple of hours or even minutes. So, you want to see “What
it looks like?”
She is wearing everything, I printed
form home.
So, I think in the future,
material will evolve, and they will look and feel like fabrics we know today
like cotton or silk. Imagine personalized clothes, that fit exactly to your
measurements. Music was once a physical thing, you would have to go to the record
shop and buy CDS but now you can just download the music, digital music directly
to your phone.
Fashion is also a very physical
thing and I wonder what our world will look like when our clothes will be
digital just this skirt.
Five Final 3D Printed dresses.









