The new era of virtual prototyping

3D Fashion is seducing France. The opening last November of a Paris office (the third in Europe) by Korea's Clo Virtual Fashion, the leader in 3D garment simulation, bears witness to this. "A natural reaction to the rapid growth of our user base in France" assures CEO Simon Kim.

This craze is explained by the fact that 3D virtualization is revolutionizing collection design: saving time and money, less textile waste, stronger designer-manufacturer collaboration, better traceability.

In the 2000s, publishers applied 3D design, a technology initiated twenty years earlier for video games, to clothing patternmaking. The idea: to replace the traditional product development process between principals and contract manufacturers (an average of three round-trips from the designer's drawing to make the necessary modifications, through to final validation of the prototype). In the new era, sketches are developed in 3D, virtual draping carried out on avatars while simultaneously building the patternmaking.

Inescapable

For designer Steven Passaro, 3D is inescapable. He uses it right from the design stage of his luxury ready-to-wear collections for men. With success: his eponymous brand, created at the end of 2019, joined the official Paris Fashion Week calendar in January 2022. Today, Steven Passaro is consulting brands wishing to integrate this 3D modeling technique. He touts a greener process (reduced materials and shipping), more economical (the software being "affordable") and much better responsiveness. "A hand-made prototype of a tailoring blazer takes about two, three days to make, compared with one day on Clo, he points out. When more contract manufacturers use 3D, it will be easier for us because they will be able to see directly how the model is assembled".

As for editors, Clo counts a handful of competitors such as Lectra, Optitex or the American Browzwear, which offers a 3D software solution dedicated to styling and now declines applications for patternmaking.

Training

Paris-based technology start-up Krobady, founded in 2016 by Benjamin Quintero, meanwhile, relies on 3D software dedicated to video games and on Clo, to create the most realistic virtual designs possible. It is announcing its own software solution for the end of 2023. With one obsession: attractive avatars. "My competitors target model makers first. We want to convince stylists, in fine the decision-makers, with hyperrealistic and aesthetic avatars, more human, with a beautiful pose, hairstyle, accessories, etc."

Krobady is also rolling out training courses, as evidenced by the partnership forged in 2022 with APHO (Association pour la Promotion de l'Habillement de l'Ouest) as part of the program launched by GFF (Groupement de la Fabrication Française), to introduce virtualization solutions to several groups of contract manufacturers (advanced workshops will follow in 2023). Among the first initiates, the Product development unit Lecarpentier now mixes 3D with its traditional 2D approach. Its CEO Laurent Drouard sees 3D as a "complementary decision-making and time-saving tool upstream: instead of making patternmaking in 2D and then assembling a physical canvas, sent to our customers for validation, with 3D we generate this first canvas on the computer, resulting in rapid validation by principals. A phase that now requires just one to two days instead of three to five before. " It can also be a tool to help sales staff, to quickly show finished designs, as part of a capsule launch, for example.

On the training side, the LAB by IFTH, the technical service platform opening in Paris at the Caserne at the end of 2021, also initiates stylists, fashion designers and business creators to 3D design, thanks to its virtualization tools.

But the horizon of 3D in fashion is far from limited to patternmaking. It facilitates the creation of virtual catwalks and presentations, and provides ready-to-use avatars, notably for an e.commerce site. But also for the great adventure of Metavers...