Ganit Goldstein and Prusa Research: Wearable Collection of 3D Printed Shoes and Outfits

October 23, 2019 by Sarah Saunders 3D Printing

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For a few years now, we’ve followed the work of Israeli fashion designer Ganit Goldstein, ever since she was a second year jewelry and fashion student at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Goldstein has collaborated with Stratasys a few times in the past on 3D printed clothing and footwear collections, but for her latest work, the innovative fashion designer teamed up with Prague-based 3D printing company Prusa Research. Together, they created a wearable collection of FDM 3D printed shoes and four outfits that were 3D printed directly on fabric.

The 3D printed wearable collection is called Custom-Fit.

“I notice recently that many companies including Adidas are working on this field, and I believe it is extremely relevant for this era we are live in, especially as a vision for customizing shoes and fashion designs developments,” Goldstein told 3DPrint.com.

Goldstein, who views the human body as an innovation platform and focuses on the development of smart textiles, created the collection during a three-month residency program at the Emma Creative Center in Pforzheim, Germany. The garments and shoes were inspired by her study of traditional Japanese ikat weaving at the Tokyo University of the Arts.

As Goldstein told us, the project will be “presented as part of the Hochschule Pforzheim Exhibition with the partners of Sectie-C, Eindhoven.”

Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven

Additionally, the four outfits and five pairs of shoes that make up the collection are currently being presented at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, which ends this Sunday, October 27th. But that’s not all – the 3D printed footwear from the collaborative project will also be presented from October 29th through the 31st as a finalist project in the Reshape 2019 competition for wearable technology in Barcelona, Spain.

Goldstein told us that the shoes were printed as one piece, using multi-color FDM 3D printing and flexible materials, and included “hand made techniques above the printed objects.”

“The shoes are already wearable with flexible materials! and designed above 3D scan, fit to measure to the specific footprint.”

All five pairs of shoes in the collection were actually printed at the headquarters of PrusaLab, a subsidiary company of Prusa Research.

The footwear in Goldstein and Prusa’s Custom-Fit collection is representative of an idea for a new 3D printing production process for shoes, which would be based on the concept of scanning in order to ensure fit-to-measure for personalized footprints.

Ganit Goldstein at PrusaLab [Image provided by PrusaLab]

Goldstein, who is currently in the middle of her Master studies at the Royal College of Arts in London, used 3D design and printing to print directly on a thick fabric for the garments in the collection. The designer has always been interested in using 3D printing and scanning to find an intersection between technology and craft, and works to change up the boundaries between fashion pieces that are hand-made and machine-made.