Future-Ready Design: How AI & 3D Modeling is Making Fashion Smarter and Greener

Margaret Kutt leads the creative team at Newtimes Development, a global sourcing agency based in Hong Kong, specializing in design services across graphics, 2D, 3D, and AI. With over 20 years of experience in the fashion industry, she has held roles in the UK and France before returning to her hometown. Margaret's expertise bridges international perspectives and innovative design solutions, driving excellence in creative sourcing.

In a thought provoking interaction with Global Woman Leader Magazine, Margaret shares her insights on the intersection of sustainability goals and technological innovation, particularly the role of 3D technology and AI in reducing carbon footprints during product development. She discusses balancing customer preferences with sustainability, overcoming challenges, and optimizing resources in the design phase.

How do sustainability goals and technological innovation intersect, particularly in using 3D technology and AI, to reduce the carbon footprint during the early stages of product development?

3D design tools can replace physical sampling by giving brands realistic images of prototypes without having to actually make them. Each season designers create and sample a much larger collection than what eventually goes to market and in conventional product development it is not uncommon for more than 80% of the styles to be dropped. 3D and Ai can help to narrow down the choices so that only the ones that look the most promising arephysically sampled, eliminating the use of textile and manufacturing resources and creating substantial savings on time and cost.

Some of the customers we work with are creating seasonal line reviews in 3D and using their own digital libraries where they store their fit avatars, digitized fabrics, silhouettes, prints and trims.

Other brands focus on particular categories, such as sweater knits, where sample lead times are long due to the availability of yarn in specific colors and complicated patterns. With 3D, a sweater style can be created and edited in a matter of days, as opposed to the 2 -4 week sample lead time to knit a sweater sample.

 

How do you balance customer preferences with sustainability in the design phase, especially when 3D technology and AI are used to create realistic, yet eco-friendly product prototypes?

The transition from a physical sample to a 3D render is difficult for most customers, designers still want to touch and feel fabrics and see how styles look and drape on a mannequin or on a fit model, so in order to overcome their reticence, we create avatars using measurements from their live fit models or purchase the e forms which are digital versions of their fit dummies and create both physical and digital samples of the same style on select items for them to compare.

This approach helps to build confidence and trust that the image of a style they have created in 3D is a true representation of a physical sample and that the fabric simulation of drape can represent the weight, transparency and movement of a real garment. The obvious savings in resources, time and cost are also an incentive to embrace this newer and more efficient development process.

AI and 3D technology is used to help customers visualize and select products before committing to physical samples. How does this shift affect traditional product development lifecycles?

If one takes the minimum order quantities for sample yardage into account, which is usually around 50yds per color and multiply that by the number of styles,  fabrics,  and colors that brands develop for prototypes , which can easily run into a few hundred  each season, and compare that with only having to digitize 1 yard of fabric and being able to use pantone numbers to create colorways for each style, instead of having to dye, print, knit or weave them, the savings on resources is obvious and measurable.

The shift to this model is a much-needed change in product development and has to be implemented on a much larger scale than it is today in order to move the needle, but when it is, the substantial savings in time and cost and the increase in efficiency will be felt by every brand that uses it.

What are the ethical considerations in using 3D technology and AI for virtual product development?

Ai can provide options for new product and marketing materials in a matter of minutes and with3D design tools widely accessible, both can greatly contribute to achieving those goals quickly and sustainably.

Ai and 3D have also made it easier to copy or counterfeit products and bring them to market with greatly reduced lead times and deceive unsuspecting customers or fuel the demand for branded product.

All brands and mass market labels have the responsibility to create original products and market & manufacture them in the most ethical ways possible.

It is up to industry and business leaders to ensure that the processes they implement protect copyrights, follow ethical and sustainable guidelines for manufacturing and provide their customers with legitimate product claims and traceable product.

How has the integration of AI and 3D modeling transformed the way you approach design thinking? What role does collaboration with AI play in making more informed, eco-conscious design choices?

Ai offers a world of endless visual options delivered quickly and accurately. Customers can either create product using it, or choose from an array generated for them, consequently making more informed and targeted choices to move forward with.

We are able to offer quick fixes to existing designs in real time during virtual meetings by digitally manipulating 3D styles and enabling them to commit to style changes as well as the associated cost implications due to immediately calculable fabric consumptions embedded in the software, or less colors and different print options.

With Ai, we can offer customers photo realistic images for look books or style susing visual/photographic or written prompts and turn 2D black and white line sketches into full color 3Dimages also using a variety of prompts, the greatest advantage of these technologies is to be able to create, filter and refine choices so only the product that has made it through the rounds of virtual sampling can actually move on to become a physical sample and ready for production.

In a global supply chain context, how do 3D technology and AI contribute to enhancing the transparency and traceability of sustainability efforts? What challenges arise in ensuring consistent sustainable practices across regions when virtual prototypes are utilized?

3D programs with all the relevant information can be integrated into PLM systems, so materials, their provenance and accreditations can be a input and tracked, greatly enhancing transparency along the entire supply chain.

Governments and consumers are demanding transparency and accountability in the supply chain and soon legislation will force us to document, review and report provenance and authenticity.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is uniformity in the legislations and requirements in reporting for each country, currently the guidelines are still vague and the checks are random, in order to ensure consistency the requirements and standards as well as the reporting needs to be formalized and clear for each part of the development and manufacturing process.