MoMA Acquires Fabric-Like 3D-Printed Dress

Yesterday, New York's Museum of Modern Art acquired a dress that was created as part of Design studio Nervous System's Kinematics project. Although the dress was produced by a 3D printer, and thus necessarily comprised of inflexible plastic, a series of 2279 unique triangular panels interconnected by 3316 hinges allow the finish garment to move and be malleable, sort of like chainmail.

"We refer to Kinematics as a 4D printing system because it generates compressed objects that unfold into their intended shape after printing," creative director Jessica Rosenkrantz told Dezeen. That is to say, the dress itself would typically be too large to print as a single unit—other similar 3D printer garments are done by printing pieces and then hand-assembling—except that they were able to model and print a folded up version of it, that could be expanded without assembly after printing.

Check out this video on the making of the dress.