Vice Style

OK, so 3D printing and rapid prototyping and desktop replicators have been around forever now, but so far, the only stuff people have managed to make are retarded-looking chairs and crap plastic tools that don't work on things like, oh, metal. That's all about to change, with designers like Naim Jousefi making stuff we'd actually want to wear. Here are five examples of recent rapid prototyping done right.

MARLOES TEN BHÖMER


Marloes ten Bhömer's ridiculously futuristic, minimalist, and chopped-up shoes are what everyone in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace would have been wearing if it hadn't been so shit. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2003 she's been wowing us with architecturally-structured heels, origami pumps, and machine-made creations like 2009's Rotationalmouldedshoe. More recently, she began harnessing the power of bad-boy replicators like the Objet Eden 500V™ 3D Printer for her Rapidprototypedshoe. Built in a single take, but designed to be taken apart to replace individual parts, they're built up from microscopic layers of two different materials that allow it to be both hard and flexible at the same time. And no you can't buy them yet.

IRIS VAN HERPEN


The unfortunately named Dutch designer's Escapism collection, for the 3D printing house Materialise, combines bio-inspired spirals with bone and shell-esque patterns formed out of epoxy and polyamide, then individually cut by laser. Commissioned as part of the company's .MDX range—usually mostly fancy lights and coffee tables—the collection is an impressive demonstration of what you can do with a big name brand behind you. If you want to try your hand at it, the company's jewelry competition closes at the end of the month, offering the chance to see your work come to life inside a 3D printer.

ANDREIA CHAVES

The aforementioned problem with a lot of 3D printing stuff is that it's mostly made from a gross-looking beige/tan plastic that looks like solidified puke. 29-year-old Brazilian shoe designer Andreia Chaves has neatly solved this problem by prototyping a pair of endoskeleton wedges then covering them with geometric mirrors. Not that they need to be hidden away - another model in her series—all handmade in Italy by a fusion of leather making techniques and advanced 3D printing—reveals the inner structure of shoe itself and the leather inner that makes them vaguely comfortable.

FREEDOM OF CREATION

Pauline Van Dongen's Morphogenesis shoes.

Like a one-stop-shop for three-dimensional creativity, Freedom of Creation acts like a giant clearing house for "kick-ass 3D printed projects". Their words not ours. Recent highlights include the London College of Fashion's Evolving Textiles project exploring "rapid manufacturing for pseudo-textile structures which conform to the body" aka chain-mail, Pauline van Dongen 's Morphogenesis shoes, and FOC's own bling-free hollow diamond ring (top photo).

TEXT: ABIGAIL SCHLAGETER AND CHRIS HATHERILL a co-director of Super/collider

TAGGED: 3d Printing