by How many wedding dresses have a file size?
To our knowledge, only one person, and Brazilian tax lawyer Mariana Pavani walked down the aisle on May 11 in a high-tech creation by Dutch couturier Iris van Herpen, a pioneer in 3D printed clothing whose first such design since 2010 , stiff creation. reminiscent of overlapping shells, it was recently exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
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In contrast, Pavani’s wedding dress has an otherworldly sensibility, the swarm of futuristic frost across the bodice and neckline giving it a solid look that belies its versatility and durability.
“There are no seams. You couldn’t do this with a normal pattern,” said van Herpen, whose Amsterdam atelier logged 600 hours to achieve the design, preceded by a lot of tinkering with ZBrush, a digital sculpting software.
“This was a dream project for me, because 3D printed fashion is in museums, and on runways, but after someone wears it on the most special day of their life, I think it’s really something else,” she said.
“The dress I wanted was big, something special,” Pavani said via Zoom from her home in São Paulo about a week before the ceremony. “From the beginning, I expected the dress to incorporate 3D printing into its design.”
The process began with a 3D bodyscan of Pavani, personally needing some hand-plated base fittings, and then a careful marriage of the delicate fabric and the 3D printed elements, made at a specialized facility in Paris.
The file size of the 3D design was 216.7 MB, and it took 41 hours to print, according to van Herpen.
She noted that there were several test runs for the 3D printed elements, and for the intricate pleating, whose pattern had to match the design of the bodice. “So you have the sculptural elements, but also the fluidity, the movement. And that duality is what I really like,” said the designer, who had a background in dance before becoming a couturier.
Despite all the high-tech elements and experimentation, the end result unleashed powerful human emotions.
“It was one of those moments where she started crying when she put the dress on, and it was so magical,” said van Herpen, sighing with joy and raising her eyes to heaven.
“It was difficult to hold back my tears,” Pavani admitted. “We achieved everything I expected… The final design makes me feel powerful and feminine, a very unique and unique look.”
Pavani also praised van Herpen’s “fantastic team” for “making them feel welcome and part of the creative process. It was also a lot of work to get the final design to fit and feel the right way on my body. They thought about everything – how the dress fits me, the way the dress moves and feels, and even the length of the veil in relation to the church we’re getting married in.”
Pavani said her fiancé, composer and art collector Roberto Toscano, introduced her to van Herpen’s work, arranging tickets for her fall 2022 fashion show in Paris.
“It’s amazing: the movement of the dresses, the way the collection flowed, and Iris’s love for nature really resonated with me,” she said. “We immediately started talking to the team to see if a wedding dress could be created.”
Van Herpen described a strong empathy with Pavani, who shares her love of nature, art – and pushing boundaries.
“I wanted to bring femininity, but with a pioneering vibe, because she is someone who is nothing ordinary. She is not afraid to express herself,” the designer enthused about Pavani. “We both consider fashion to be an art form. And so she wants to express herself and embody that femininity, but also with the influences of new technology.”
Van Herpen, who mixes traditional couture techniques such as pleating, draping and beading with high-tech elements such as silicon molding and laser-cutting, considers the two central to his brand DNA.
She was impressed by the ability of the Paris printer, which she only discovered a year ago. “The quality of the material is so flexible,” she marveled at the nylon polymer called PA 12. “She can sit in it, she can basically do anything in it without it being as flexible as an event. time.”
There are still many misconceptions about 3D printing in fashion, and many consider it technically off limits.
“It’s a very complicated process. Yes, you have to get used to it, but once you get it, I don’t think it’s much more difficult than some of the traditional ways of working,” said van Herpen.
As for the persistent belief that 3D printed fashion is unwearable, “that’s history, because with the materials and flexibilities you have today, it’s incredibly comfortable.
“It’s where I hoped it would be back then,” she said — “there” being in 2010 when she realized her first 3D-printed clothes. She said it took decades of innovation and “stress tests” for scientists to overcome the “limits on the durability of flexibility”.
In fact, a Pavani dress also does not require exceptional care or handling. “Cleaning is like any precious wedding look: You can’t put it in the washing machine, but for dry cleaning, it’s good. And for storage, you can put it directly on the hanger. It’s so light,” said van Herpen.
In van Herpen’s view, “3D printing creates a lot of freedom” when she designs, explaining that “the look you’re seeing on this bride is not something we could have done any other way. Due to the complexity of sculpting these files, there is no way we could do that by hand. You couldn’t do that by making any kind of pattern.
“I also like the seamlessness and therefore as well as the smoothness, its cleanliness is something I really love,” she said. “I think a lot of people still feel a little intimidated by the process [of 3D-printing] because it’s different, but it gives you a lot of freedom when you have it.”
That said, “you have to keep your eyes open on what’s happening in different areas of the world because 3D printing is really global,” she said.
Since her wedding dress is going where no dress has gone before, Pavani said she doesn’t expect everyone to appreciate it as much as she has.
“Just like all art, there will be different opinions about the dress. I accept that,” she said. “But for me, the 3D printed structure attached to the neck is very symbolic. The shape of the neck element brings to mind the eyes of the owl, which is usually associated with wisdom in the Brazilian Candomblé religion. Both spirituality and nature are areas of great interest to me.”
In fact, Pavani considers the dress she plans to display in her apartment to be a work of art.
“Roberto and I are very proud that Iris designed my wedding dress,” she said. “It’s a masterpiece.”
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