The talented high-tech wearables artist and maker, Sophy Wong, was one of the presenters at Supercon last year. On Hackaday, they did a nice write-up about Sophy and her talk.
Prolific designer and maker Sophy Wong is always looking toward the future, and that goes for everything from the costume pieces she makes to the idea of making itself. In her excellent and highly-visual Supercon talk, Sophy explores both, and gives the viewer a window on her evolved-and-evolving design philosophy.
You likely know Sophy as That Maker Who 3D Prints On Fabric, a label she is quick to dismiss, pointing animatedly toward the seminal work of one David Shorey, who also happened to be at Supercon 2022. As Sophy explains, the process begins by modeling disconnected bodies to be printed, then printing the first layer and pausing the print. At this point, a piece of nylon mesh is inserted, and the print is resumed. The result is that the mesh is trapped between the first and second layers, and the bodies are now connected by a common thread. Carefully remove the sandwich from the print bed and you have a highly-flexible, mesmerizing piece of material that almost acts like chain maille.
After a ton of experimentation with printing on fabric, Sophy completed her 3D-printed dress during the height of the pandemic, and spends a good chunk of the talk discussing how she was able to leverage this concept into an entire garment — in other words, how the heck she turned it into a dress. To further complicate things, the build volume of her printer prohibited making any one piece larger than 10×10″.
Read the rest and see Sophy’s talk on Hackaday.