3D printing adds another dimension to merino wool

Australian Wool Innovation has highlighted 3D printing as offering new applications for materials based on merino wool.

The organisation’s R&D manager for Europe, Birgit Gahlen, said that printing onto a base of merino could create new “new visual possibilities, dynamism and movement” while keeping the comfort and performance of merino.

AWI said new visual characteristics such as “enigmatic shimmer effects” when fabric moved over a wearer could be created, as well as mass customisation possibilities and improvements in production times and waste.

Cited was a recent collaborative project between urban laboratory D-House, The Woolmark Company, and 3D printer company Stratasys, involving three international designers and four students from the Royal College of Art in London, and titled “Knitting the future – 3D printing meets Merino wool”. (See video.)

AWI is a not-for-profit performing marketing and R&D for Australian wool on behalf of the nation’s woolgrowers.

Picture: A close-up of a design ‘The Onion Dress’ by Royal College of Art student María Fernanda Nava.

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