Catwalk CAD: The Next Fashion Craze

By BIMAL DHARSI | Published: DECEMBER 5, 2011

CAD is to engineering as fabric is to fashion.

But as CAD becomes more lightweight and easier to use it’s expanding its reach to new environments. Applying traditional CAD software to produce non-traditional designs for non-traditional materials is the new vogue.

If you ever get a chance to go to an international  fashion show in London, Paris, Amsterdam or Melbourne, you’ll likely hear adulation from a well-informed crowd. Critics commenting on the elegance and grace of the clothes. But at Melbourne Spring Fashion Week you might have been more likely to hear cries of “look at that complex geometry!”

Designer Amelia Agosta made a new kind of fashion statement at this year’s show when she donned a three dimensional sculptural outfit. Rather than using the traditional tape measure and sketch book, Agosta chose to scan her body in 3-D and then create an outfit using 3-D modeling software. The design was then fabricated overnight using Selective Laser Sintering.

• See more CAD creations on the catwalk