Concept & Inspiration
As a fashion designer and costume historian, I am fascinated by the fact that clothes are two-dimensional objects that change into three-dimensional objects when put on a body. Move the body, and the garment comes alive. Add fabric drape (how the fabric hangs and behaves) to the equation and you get a constantly shifting shape. For this project, I tried to capture the interaction between a moving body and a billowy satin dress with a chiffon cape, juxtaposed with a stark desert background. I first executed my vision in 3D with CLO, an apparel design simulation software program, and then constructed the physical dress and cape from digitally printed fabric.
Digital Process
First, I drafted a dress and cape pattern in the 2D window of CLO, linked the pattern pieces, placed the pieces on the avatar, and virtually sewed the pieces together.
Linked garment pattern in 2D window.
Placement on avatar in 3D window.
Snapshots of avatar in virtually sewn dress with cape in CLO.
I then engineer designed an ink cloud taken from an Adobe stock image by Djero Adlibeshe of ink in water and had it digitally printed on satin fabric by Spoonflower, a sustainable company that prints on demand. I did the same for another Adobe stock image by elinacious of an abstract blue ink wash painting in traditional Japanese sumi-e style, and had it printed on chiffon fabric. After I engineer designed the fabric, I added the textures to the virtual fabrics in CLO.
Order for engineered design for satin fabric, digitally printed by Spoonflower.
Order for engineered design for chiffon fabric, digitally printed by Spoonflower.
Snapshots of avatar in dress and cape with printed fabric in CLO.
Before rendering the final virtual scene, I added a picture of Death Valley, CA, taken by my daughter Briana Villarreal, as a backdrop. App State Apparel Design & Merchandising senior Ryan Hummel helped with the selection of a HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) from Poly Haven and additional lighting of the scene. I used a wind controller in the 3D environment to add movement to the dress and cape.
Top left: Picture of Death Valley, CA, (c) Briana Villarreal. Bottom left: HDRI Fouriesburg Mountain Lookout, (c) Dimitrios Savva/Jarod Guest. Right: Rendered image of avatar, (c) Nicole Villarreal.
After observing the outcome, I fine tuned details such as the fabric rendering by adding shine and lowering the particle distance of the fabric. I added motion to the avatar so it appears she is walking in the desert. Then I prepared PowerPoint slides describing the 3D process and saved them as a video. Finally, I merged the two resulting videos into one for play on a tv-screen positioned behind the physical dress.
Physical Process
Based on the patterns I drafted in CLO, I cut out the fabric and sewed the pieces together on a Bernina 330 sewing machine. For the cape, I double folded and stitched the top of the chiffon fabric to create a tunnel. I pulled a sheer organza tape through the tunnel so that the cape can be tied around the neck of the mannequin.
The pictures on the left show the mannequin ready to be carted to the Turchin Center for installation. The picture on the right was taken by Ryan Hummel.
Tools
CLO 3D software for pattern development and 3D visualization - Adobe Photoshop for image corrections and adjustments - Poly Haven for HDRI lighting of 3D visualization - Windows 11 for running software and recording of video clip - Spoonflower for print-on-demand fabric - Bernina 330 sewing machine - Manual tools such as scissors, chalk, pins, et cetera for making the physical dress.
The Transformations exhibition opened on Friday, November 4, 2022 during Boone's First Friday Art Crawl and will be open until May of 2023.
What's Next?
The next step is to create a video of the avatar in motion and show how some of the 3D simulation process was done so it can be played during the Transformations exhibition. I also want to finetune the renderings by scanning the fabrics and materials used for this project with Apparel Design & Merchandising's new fabric digitization scanner and software (xTex by Vizoo).
Long term, I want to explore AR/VR/MR technology (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality/Mixed Reality) and how this can be applied to 3D apparel simulation so that the viewer can become part of the created experience.