Dublin-based design studio Love & Robots and costume designer Niamh Lunny have recently teamed up to realize Plumage, a 3D printed, free-moving, customizable cape made from over 6000 moving components parts that give the illusion of real feathers.
Unveiled at this year’s Dutch Design Week, Plumage is printed in one piece using chainmail as the underlayer, integrated with an upper layer of free-moving feathers, to create the textile-like finish. Emer O’Daly, co-founder of Love & Robots said; “Using integrated structures like this is revolutionising hundreds of industries, from medicine to automotive and space industries. We at Love & Robots are looking at how 3d printing will revolutionize the design and fashion industries and it’s exciting to see where these innovations may take us.”
The cape project looks at traditional costume and how it can be reinterpreted using new digital design and 3d printing technologies. It is an exploration of patterns in fabric such as knit and lace, as well as 3-dimensional structures and surfaces, and natural phenomena.
Love & Robots have previously experimented with 3D printing chainmail structures, as well as complex organic patterns, but the Plumage Cape extends those explorations to construct a piece of clothing that can be printed in one piece without any assembly required. All feathers are customisable and can be re-designed personally according to each wearer’s style. Following Eindhoven the Plumage Cape has been also on show during the Irish Design Week.
The Plumage Cape is available for purchase here for €6,000 (about $ 6,600 USD). The cape weighs approx. 0.8kg, measures approx. 465mm in diameter and is printed in 100% skin-safe nylon.
all images and video courtesy of Love & Robots