Inter-fashionality

Under the influence of Parametricism in the current digital culture, textiles as a design tool, mediates the interrelationship of garment, body and movement, becoming the second skin of humans.

Qipao is a traditional Chinese dress that was, originally, designed as wide and loose. The shape of the garment changed from the 1920s when Shanghai became the centre of Eastern trade and local tailors continued shaping, using ironing rather than darts.

Digital fashion seeks both the technical and conceptual innovation. 3D Printing is one of them. Similar to the Qipao history, the specific tailors’ skill of making and ironing techniques differentiates the understanding of body, dress and the space in between. This speculative and collaborative research, Textile the Skin, asks how traditional knowledge of the Qipao can be interpreted through new techniques of 3D printing, in order to celebrate the innovation made possible by mechanical systems and to reconsider the traditional handcraft knowledge under digitization.

Mingjing Lin, a PhD researcher at RCA School of Material, explores how 3D printing enables new forms of customization, bespoke manufacture and mass making. With cultural exchange as the core of the project, the new garments echo tradition in the way they are also sustainable, as they follow a continuous pattern there is little waste. And inspired by “one-piece” concept and Chinese ironing techniques, the new designs are printed by SLA and FDM techniques and fitted to the body, creating beautifully interactive movement between garment and dancers.