The scalability of 3D printing technologies lets all art and fashion businesses make use of them. From independent sculptors to the largest fashion businesses, artists and designers around the world are applying 3D printers in creative ways. Some of their applications are as much art as the products and parts the printers create.

You can’t rush genius, but artists and fashion designers often have to work on tight deadlines. Conventional work methods can make iterating on designs and producing prototypes slower than you’d like.

3D printers store files as easily modifiable CAD files that allow you to implement design changes potentially in mere minutes. You can produce accurate prototypes and design proofs in hours instead of days, using materials that showcase even the tiniest details and offer true-to-life surface textures.

Additive manufacturing also enables you to quickly produce tools and moulds for casting, patterning, or material shaping. They can reduce your lead times, help you run through design iterations fast, and get your works to the client in record time.

Louis Vuitton needs no introduction. The leading luxury product and fashion company is always looking for innovative ways to streamline its production processes and bring new, high-quality products to the market.

Using BCN3D printers, Louis Vuitton has been able to reduce production times of custom jigs and fixtures from more than a week to less than 24 hours. The fashion giant also uses 3D printed stand-ins for latches, hooks, and other components during the product design phase, optimising material consumption and lead times.

In addition, the company’s engineers now 3D print unique moulds and tools necessary to fabricate new high-fashion items. By producing these tools on-site, Louis Vuitton has practically eliminated wait times and significantly slashed production costs.

True innovation requires constantly pushing the limits of the materials you use. The possibilities of many common materials in the arts and fashion industry have already been exhausted. As such, you may find it difficult to find the right materials for your creations.

3D printers unlock an immense range of potential materials. Depending on your chosen technology, you may be able to print with rubber-like flexible resins, recycled plastic filaments, or reinforced thermoplastics that are sturdier than metal.

By utilising novel materials, art and fashion professionals can create innovative artworks and products. You can unlock whole new creative possibilities and business opportunities with the right material choices.

Sportswear producer New Balance was looking to create new, complex, and customised sole structures to improve the performance of its trainers. However, the company couldn’t find a material that could scale from prototyping to commercial mass production.

New Balance partnered with 3D printer manufacturer Formlabs to develop an entirely new Rebound Resin through hundreds of formulations. This unique material creates springy and resilient lattice structures that offer improved energy return and durability than earlier options.

Dubbed the TripleCell technology, the new resin material and the resulting structure now improve the athletic performance of two different trainer models. New Balance aims to soon produce more than 10,000 pairs of TripleCell-powered, 3D-printed trainers per year.

An increasing number of consumers favour sustainably produced low-waste products. This is no different in the world of art and fashion. Improving the sustainability of your creative processes can be what puts you ahead of your competitors.

Unlike conventional, subtractive manufacturing methods, additive manufacturing only consumes the amount of material that’s necessary. By building products layer by layer, you’ll be able to reduce materials consumption and both improve your sustainability and save on costs.

Additionally, 3D printers enable you to produce creative structures, like hollow or latticed part internals. Not only will you save materials, but you can make your artwork or products lighter without affecting their mechanical strength.

Spanish fashion brand ZER Collection turned to 3D printers in a bid to improve their manufacturing processes’ sustainability. By digitising all of their patterns, ZER Collection can now produce clothes while consuming only the necessary amount of fabric.

BCN3D’s Sigma printer has reduced the amount of fabric waste from 30% to nearly zero, while also recycling plastics from old clothes and unnecessary prototypes. Not only that, the ability to print two materials at a time has significantly improved ZER Collection’s productivity.

“We believe that the use of 3D printing represents a revolution in fashion, in environmental care, and in society,” said ZER Collection co-founders and designers Núria Costa and Ane Castro.

3D scanners are devices that use a range of technologies to digitise physical objects into accurate 3D models and CAD files. With the ability to easily edit the 3D models, these lightweight devices open new possibilities for both artists and fashion producers.

Artists can scan posing models for use as references or duplicate hand-sculpted objects for large-scale art installations. Meanwhile, art restorers and conservators can scan antiques and art pieces to print replacement parts in intricate detail.

Fashion designers, on the other hand, can use 3D scanners to create digital mannequins. By scanning a model’s body, they can create accessories or clothes tailored precisely to the right measurements.

Jason Kimes is an American artist, specialising in the creation of outdoor figurative sculptors. Kimes used to use full-body plaster moulds to capture the poses of his models — a laborious and time-consuming method that has been used for centuries.

To speed up the process, Kimes turned to Peel 3D scanners. Now, he’s able to scan a model’s pose into a 3D file. He can then scale the digital model up to the size he needs before 3D printing it in polystyrene foam to use as a base for his metal sculptures.