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Why are you posting this to HackerNews? This isnt a hype board, for consumer products. Its supposed to be a tech first community.
Right now I'm doing the opposite: 3D printing a loom for hand-knit garments. https://www.printables.com/model/1483991-fall-is-looming-the...
So in theory 3D-Knitting can produce a made-to-measure garment on demand, and has been able to for years. And yet, no one actually offers to sell you a made-to-measure knitted garment. Why? A few theories: - Knits are stretchy so there's limited demand for M2M - DFM/software issues - no one actually knows to generate a pattern from a set of sizes without human intervention - Issues with OEE - it's inefficient to wait…
They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I th…
I bought a 200 dollar jacket and it had holes in it within months, just from regular use. I have an old 3 dollar shirt I bought years ago and it's only now beginning to show wear. One problem this shows, is that as a consumer I have no idea what the hell is quality clothing. Clearly, expensive does not always mean high quality. And I'm not buying "brand" clothing either.
Your experience is very common, I have a fake nike sweatshirt I bought more than a decade ago from a random street seller (emergency on a trip) which still outlasts current brand clothes.
Consumers' ignorance is not the problem, it used to be generally true that the more expensive item was better. Every brand has seemingly decided to burn their furniture to heat the house though, and what we experience is not as much consumer ignorance as it is a lack of names deserving trust.
A while back, Lee Valley did a 3D knitted chisel roll using Kevlar and other materials, in support of the Canadian company which invented the 3D knitting process used (unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have the money or need for --- I've since updated my woodworking toolkit and have a nice set of chisels which it would have been perfect for, except it was discontinued and is no longer available...)
They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I th…
As I understand it, a big part of produced clothing just goes straight to waste to begin with. If everything was created on-demand, it would minimize that kind of waste.
However, made on demand will likely cost more, plus you can't fit items first. Unless they make items for fitting which you can then order to have manufactured.
But yeah the main thing is that on-demand can never compete with mass production even if a big part of the mass produced stuff is discarded.
They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I th…
"just don't do X" has basically never worked, it is not a serious solution to any problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I understand it, a big part of produced clothing just goes straight to waste to begin with. If everything was created on-demand, it would minimize that kind of waste.
That would be great, a lot of clothes are made at sizes that don't sell very well and which get discounted, then discarded if they don't sell. However, made on demand will likely cost more, plus you can't fit items first. Unless they make items for fitting which you can then order to have manufactured. But yeah the main thing is that on-demand can never compete with mass production even if a big part of the mass prod…
I'm also a hand knitter, and I don't really see any conflict between what they're doing and hand knitting. The grist of the yarn that you use as a hand knitter is generally much thicker than these machines commonly use. Commercial 3D knitting machines can do all of the stretchy, thin, and light stuff that the modern wardrobe is built around.
As folks note, this technology was really pioneered by Shimaseki's work in Japan just decades ago. What OC and the similar Brooklyn-based Tailored Industry are really innovating on is the business model and connection to production process. Folks like this are really serious about not producing all of the waste that comes with most fashion production processes, and it shows up at several levels of the stack.
For the HN crowd, TI's platform gives you more of a sense of why this sort of tech is really like the cloud for knitwear: https://tailoredindustry.com/platform
Really a fascinating part of the global fashion production world, and one we would all benefit from seeing grow.