My dad is... well, technically I guess he's an inventor, but most recently he's an industrial designer. He does a lot of work with CAD (Computer Aided Design) programs, and is pretty active on the internet in CAD circles. As such, he's recently gotten involved with a company called AutoDesk, which has a new program, Fusion360, in beta. They wanted his input and wined and dined him in Portland and San Francisco, and as it turns out they're really looking for new ideas regarding CAD work and what their program could be used for. I've been curious for a long time about designing patterns on the computer- pattern drafting by hand is a wonderful skill, but it takes a long time and I can't help thinking that there has to be a better way to do things. I've signed up for the Fusion360 beta, and I'm currently going through the tutorials and stuff. What I'm proposing to do- that is, using a 3D-modeling program to create 2D patterns- is pushing the boundaries of what this software is intended to do, but I think it could be really great.
One of the wonderful things about sewing for me is that it's been much the same for decades. Various advances in sewing machine technology have brought about some changes, and certainly the invention of the serger was pretty radical, but even so, the process of drafting the pattern, cutting the fabric, and putting it together isn't that much different. It's an ancient technology. At the same time, I firmly believe that we as a society need to move with the times. New tech isn't going to go anywhere just because we like old tech better, so we might as well get used to it and make it work like we want. Just like cars supplanted horse-drawn carriages, and like cell phones are gradually replacing landlines, I think the art of drafting patterns by hand is going to die out. The eternal problem with clothing design is making clothes fit. Before ready-to-wear clothing, pretty much everyone made their own clothes, or had someone make them. Clothing was, by and large, custom (at least if you were wealthy enough- I am making generalizations here, I know, but it's in service of making a point). With the advent of ready-to-wear clothing, suddenly there came a problem: people come in lots and lots of different shapes and sizes, and it's practically impossible to generalize what a person looks like. The various sizing systems that have developed to cope with this do not work. I started making my own clothes because I was so frustrated with never being able to find anything to fit me. The future of the garment industry is in a return to custom-fitted clothing, but using the new tech that we have available. When my dad was at AutoDesk's San Francisco offices, they had a machine that could create a 3D scan of your body. From a scan like that, a pattern could be produced for clothing that would be fitted exactly to you. Part of the expense of custom-made clothing, or of haute couture for that matter, is in creating a custom pattern. If that process could be automated, I believe that custom clothing could be made much more cheaply.
Having clothes that fit is really great for your self-esteem. I used to hate my body because I thought it was wrong. I thought it was wrong because nothing ever fit me. I'm very short and relatively thin, but I'm also quite curvy and a definite pear shape. In most things I wear a 0-2, but the body shape for which size 0-2 clothes are designed is the slim, androgynous body of a runway model. My hips were always too big, my waist and chest too small. Nothing ever fit right, and I put the blame on myself, when instead I should have put it on the clothes I was wearing. Making clothes for myself was a way to own my body shape and become comfortable with it. I'm lucky, though. I can at least find clothes in roughly my size. The whole area of plus-size fashion is something I can't really talk too much about, as I've never been plus-size, but I can imagine that easier and cheaper access to custom clothing could only be a good thing.
So. That turned into a bit of a rant. Anyway, I'll post about how Fusion360 works out.
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