D.dress

2010
Design + Code

A computational fashion collection. The design of a dress is the software, and the collection is an infinite, continuously expanding set of individually generated models. The artistic vision is not represented by any single physical dress, but rather within the code and the interaction.

D.dress is a deconstruction of the classic little black dress. It invites you to “draw” a dress and converts it into a 3D model, which is turned into a flat pattern that can be cut out of fabric and sewn into a physical dress.

The design approach of using triangles came out of both consideration for aesthetics as well as acknowledgement of limitations. This lo-res approach references the fact that simulating cloth in the computer requires thousands of triangles. I took the opposite approach of choosing to not simulate cloth digitally at all, but rather making cloth seem more digital.

The triangulation also insures that almost any drawing will produce an interesting form, and in fact produces good meshes from mere scribbles.

Thousands of dresses have been drawn and saved by visitors to the site.

Some physical dresses made from the digital meshes, sewn with cloth and much labor.

Each design was drawn by a different woman.