Jessica Rosenkrantz, Jesse Louis-Rosenberg

Working at the intersection of math, science, and technology, designers Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg study patterns inherent to organic forms, using them as blueprints for man- made printed materials. Kinematics is a branch of classical mechanics that investigates the motion of points and objects, a term adopted by the designers for their 4-D printing system. The dress consists of over three thousand unique parts that have been combined into one complete, complex assemblage in a 3-D printer.
To produce the dress, the client’s body is imaged through a 3-D scan, onto which the garment surface is then digitally tessellated into triangular shapes that hinge together (the smaller the triangles, the more flexible and likely to drape the fabric will be). The tessellation is compressed to fit the volume of (the 3-D printer and the form is generated using a selective laser sinter process that binds nylon powder into concrete forms. This method allows garments to be customized based on clients’ individual body shapes and aesthetic desires.