Costume Designer Ruth Carter received the award for Best Costume Design for Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever at Sunday’s Academy Awards. Until now, little was known about the impressive technologies used by the designer and her team to create the wardrobe and accessories for the film.
One of the most eye-catching designs in the film is a majestic crown and necklace. The imposing pieces are worn in the film by Queen Ramonda, who was played by actress Angela Bassett, who was also nominated. Both the crown and jewelry were designed by Julia Koerner and manufactured in Leuven, Belgium by 3D printing pioneers Materialise.
Materialize: between the automotive industry and Hollywood
The company is traditionally associated with industrial work for Airbus, Ray-Ban, car and bicycle manufacturers, but to create the film’s costumes it needed an innovator like Materialize.
For the development of the designs, tradition and hyper-modernity had to merge to represent the unique Wakandan civilization, which is deeply rooted in African culture. 3D printing provided the freedom to create extremely complex designs and structures.
Materialize used a technology called laser sintering, a 3D printing technology that uses a laser to fuse powder particles layer by layer. Materialize uses laser sintering. With this 3D printing technology, powder particles are fused layer by layer with a laser. Each layer is only 0.1 mm thick. The resulting pieces tend to be strong and rigid, but the sophisticated execution allowed for a design that was both comfortable enough to wear and rigid enough to maintain the imposing royal look.
3D printing challenges
A Materialize survey shows that many companies recognize the unique benefits of 3D printing, but face challenges in adopting the technology and moving to mass production. In the fashion industry, 3D printing is still in its infancy and has yet to evolve into a sustainable solution for ultra-fast fast fashion fashion production.
This translated post previously appeared on FashionUnited.com.