By Meredith Corning
Can you explain the services Style No. 2806 offers to fashion designers?
Pattern-making is an art. It is the talent of balancing beauty, proportion, and motion by creating shapes that compliment the human body. As most patterns are derived from just a few pattern bases, the most difficult part of pattern-making is creating a base that fits well and is comfortable to wear. Doing this properly takes time and talent.
Because all our patterns are created employing a combination of CAD/CAM and 3-D prototyping technology, revising and refining them is much quicker and costs less than ever before. And you don’t even need to have CAD/CAM technology yourself, as we can provide all our patterns in PDF format. All you need to do is print, cut, and use the pattern the same way you would use your own patterns.
What’s more, pattern templates and pattern customizations are just two of the solutions we offer. We can also help you visualize your creations using 3-D prototyping – an innovative technique that is ideal for testing different ideas before creating a physical prototype. 3-D prototyping can also be used to animate your creations and create presentations for sales and marketing purposes that are guaranteed to impress potential buyers.
How can this modern technology help designers in their marketing plans?
Our goal is to help designers build their lines more efficiently. We are here to help them visualize their ideas before committing to a physical sample. With this technology they will decide quicker and save more.
Here are just some ideas of how this technology can be used:
– As a presentation tool to convince management or potential buyers that their idea is the right one.
– To showcase different design options by producing only one physical sample and offering other design options in a virtual format.
– To create a product only in 3D and have customers vote for the one they would want to buy.
– To create low-cost promotional material. Creating fashion show animations and realistic pictures of their ideas cost a fraction of what it costs to do them in a real world.
In short, designers will be able to market and promote their products and ideas before investing a single dime in a physical sample. Possibilities are endless. Whatever use they choose, they can be certain to impress their audience.
Your services include a CAD/CAM system for developing garment patterns. Once a pattern is purchased, what will the designer receive, and how do they proceed if they have never used a system like this before?
Those who possess a CAD/CAM system can order their usual file format. For those who still work with cardboard patterns we create simple PDF formats that can be printed in any facility
that offers large format printing. All these formats can be chosen during the purchase process.
In short, buying our patterns is not much different from paying someone to do patterns for you.
In order to meet deadlines, every pattern-maker works from a set of pattern bases and pattern templates that they keep in their libraries. When you go to a pattern-maker with your sketch, what a pattern-maker really does is he/she takes the closest pattern to your idea and configures it to your specifications. What we have done here is to make our library public so you can do the checking yourself. Since all our patterns are draped as 3D represent- ations, checking should be like going through a closet of design /shape ideas. If what we offer is exactly what you are looking for, just purchase that pattern; and we will send it to you in your chosen format as soon as we receive the payment. If you need to configure it a bit, you can do it yourself; or we can do it for you for a fee.
If you want to change some things on the pattern and are not sure what those changes will look like – no problem. Our 3D prototyping service is exactly for that.
In any case, when you purchase from us, you will get what you want much faster and much cheaper.
In your view, what is the value added for designers who choose to use your animation or 3D prototyping?
-Avoid making “the wrong” samples. If a sample doesn’t look good in 3D, replace it before it is too late.
-Skip sewing redundant duplicates to show different colors and textures. Produce them only after a commitment from your customer.
-Visualise your ideas before creating a physical sample.
-Slash design development time by 20%.
-Half the number of test cottons and test physical samples.
-Eliminate design ambiguities and errors.
-Facilitate communication between design and pattern-making.
-Create low cost garment-related promotional material.
-Impress an audience with quality 3D renderings and fashion show animations.
Your mission is to help designers find solutions that enhance design, reduce costs, and save valuable resources. Do you consider Style No. 2806 a “green” company?
Absolutely. The raison d’être of 3D technology is to facilitate the “green” approach to business.
With 3D technology we can make sure that we only produce that which is wanted or needed…that we do not produce just to visualize and test. Producing just to visualize is not only
costly in terms of resources but requires incredible infrastructure to manage sample inventories.
We believe that integrating “green” solutions into business models is what will ultimately determine who will still be doing business in the next decade.
With such cutting-edge technological processes, what does the future hold for Style No. 2806, and are there new advances on the horizon?
Our motto is to “Never stop improving!” We believe that the technological foundations for a truly “green” product development process have been established. What is coming are improvements in each of these technologies. 3D draping capabilities will improve, animations will get better and easier, measurements will be taken with a simple click of a camera, and personal avatars will be created automatically. Every one of these improvements will get us closer to a zero-waste production. Our hope is to be the loudest voice on this path to sustainability.
Meredith Corning 