Hemp-based 3D printing invades the fashion industry, thanks to Liz Ciokajlo

t this year’s Fashion Weeks, in Milan, Paris and New York,
technology’s latest innovations are making things interesting. 3D printing has
slowly been infiltrating the fashion industry, especially in accessories. At
this year’s biggest fashion events, 3D printed dresses, shoes, jackets,
accessories, jewelry and swimwear were garnering a lot of attention. Designers
like Iris van Herpen, Michael Smith, Francis Bitonti, Ron Arab, Continuum,
Catherine Wales and many more are utilizing this fun and new technology to
change the way we think about fashion. However, London footwear designer Liz
Ciokajlo is even re-thinking that.

Many designers have begun to look to this new way of working which
without a doubt offers a multitude of new possibilities that have only been
limited by one thing, the different source materials available.

With over 15 years’ background in a combination of product, furniture
design and fashion accessories, and after winning multiple awards, Ciokajlo has
started rethinking her material choices in 3D printing, and in shoe design. Her
latest collection, called Natural Selection, aimed to objectify the shoe. The
project started with the examination of how 3-D printing could alter footwear
architecture and identify new design constructions. There seemed to be a lack
of natural materials used in designing footwear.  

Her latest collection of shoes utilizes varied, natural non-woven
materials. By concentrating the fibers and adding binders, the properties and
characteristics could change, producing controllable soft and hard material on
one object. As the project progressed it became evident, synthetic biology can converge
with 3D printing techniques to perfect biological and eco-friendly shoe design.
Her materials of choice? Coconut, wool, flax and hemp.

Her hemp shoes are gorgeous, modern styled platform wedges that have a
kind of space age, minimalist aesthetic. She used hemp, non-woven sheets,
steamed and compression molded with soft/ hard wool felt socks. The socks were
suspended in a molded tube with ledges. Binders gave further structure to the
heel. These hemp sheets are used in automotive interior body panels, trays and
furniture.

“I wanted to explore 3D print with footwear because I like it as a
process,” Ciokajlo explained to So
Catchy!

“I think it has a lot of benefits
because you reduce material, you don’t have wastage and it brings back
manufacturing to the local [level]. 3D print brings back local manufacturing
because it relies on machine as opposed to labor cost.

I started to look at materials
that had customization in them and that’s when I stumbled upon the wool felt
and non-wovens [flax and hemp], and that’s when I discovered that if the
keratins were soaked with a resin, they became super strong because the
keratins in the wool are hollow tubes and it makes them, because they’re
proteins, and they’re natural materials, really elastic so it wouldn’t crack.”

Ciokajlo is one of many designers that are revolutionizing the way we
think about the materials we use in fashion, but also the way we think of 3D
printing. Using biological materials to create plastic is becoming increasingly
popular, helping to redefine the processes involved in creating art, design and
fashion, and blurring the lines between art and technology—and this is only the
beginning.

lizciokajlo.co.uk