Varying fabric drape by 3D-imprinted patterns for garment design

Abstract

Drape is one of the most important properties of fabric, which significantly influences the appearance of a garment or technical textile. Being closely related to stiffness and other mechanical parameters, drape is also influenced by seams and other modifications of the pure textile fabric. In most investigations, the drape coefficient according to Cusick is used to measure drape, using a special drape meter, which allows to quantitatively describing the textile's behaviour in terms of drape coefficient, number of nodes, etc. This article gives an overview of possibilities to modify fabric drape by printing different geometrical patterns on textile fabric. Their geometry and distance also influence on fabric drape. The resulting differences in a real garment using a skirt as an example will show the impact of 3D printing on garment drape.