Technology in the Fashion Industry: Designing with Digital Media

The fashion industry has advanced new technologies in the twenty-first century that has made producing apparel more cost effective with faster time-to-market capabilities and greatly reduced steps in the manufacturing process. The reasons for these improvements can be linked to new apparel computer-aided-design (CAD) technologies that have come about in the market as computers have advanced and grown in processing power and reduction in size since the 1980s. Computers are revolutionizing many industries and the way business is conducted in today’s modern workplace. The fashion industry has yet to convert all processes to digital means but advancements have been growing in popularity over the years and are certain to increase as the technologies available become better and more reliable. This raises the need for research to take place to survey the market and determine what types of software are available and the capabilities of the technologies. Essentially, this thesis project consists of first starting with the requirement of using computer-aided patternmaking to design and create a collection of six complete outfits; secondly, to use and incorporate as much digital media or technological effects as possible into those outfits; and finally, 3D draping/modeling will be used to assess fit quality of the six outfits and determine if new 3D technology from Optitex can accurately remove the step of creating realfabric muslins or test samples as a requirement prior to manufacturing. This is significant because traditionally, the prototyping/sample creation step in the fashion industry manufacturing process takes anywhere from “8 weeks to 18 months.”