Designer Holds 3D Fashion Show Without Models, Showing Us Future Of Fashion

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of so many awaited events -- the Mobile World Congress, E3, Google I/O and others.?

This was also experienced by the people who aren’t from the tech community --? people from the world of fashion when New York Fashion Week was scrubbed.?

Reuters

In case you didn’t know, New York Fashion Week is a major yearly event for designers and people in the fashion industry.?

Several designers who had worked hard for the show couldn’t showcase their creations this year. One of them was Anifa Mvuemba -- founder of brand Hanifa.

This would have been her first runway on the platform. But with the cancellation, she too couldn’t showcase her creations on the famous fashion event.?

Fast Company

However, she didn’t lose hope and actually managed to showcase her creations in the most unique way possible -- with 3D technology.

In May, she held a virtual fashion (reported first by FastCompany) show that was streamed live on her Instagram profile.?

In this show, each clothing was actually rendered in 3D on a black backdrop, without any human in it or around it.?

Hanifa/ Fast Company

Learning CAD and 3D animations

She learnt to work on 3D and CAD animation when she was home, locked down due to the pandemic while seeking help from CAD designer and animator from her team who helped her get 3D digital models of her creations.??

The clothing and design were rendered just like you see in Hollywood movies. The clothes from her Pink Label Congo collection were first transformed into a 3D image. This was then fitted onto the body of a digital avatar.?

Hanifa/ Fast Company

In a conversation with FastCompany, she expressed that getting the right fit on the digital avatar was as painstaking as it is in real life with a model.?

Starting a new fashion trend

She shared how if the fit wasn’t proper the fabric would slide off when in motion, so getting it right was imperative.

And the end result is a beautiful yet scary looking ghost show, that could probably be the future of fashion shows in the industry, in a COVID-19 world.?

When asked about whether she’ll replace models in her future collections too, she stated that she won’t, “exclusively use technology to replace people. I like working with real models too much.”