3D STOLA
Designed by JULIA KÖRNER | JK Design GmbH 2019
Custom 3D printed Statement Piece for Ruth E. Carter for the Academy Awards 2019
The 3D Statement Piece is the first 3D-printed piece to be worn on the Red Carpet at the Academy Awards. To sublime the piece, Austrian Designer Julia Koerner partnered with Swarovski to integrate their cutting edge line of crystals onto the garment in a novel technique, which is a first of its kind.
After a remarkably successful collaboration on the 3D-Printed costumes for Queen Ramonda, Black Panther Marvel 2018, Julia Koerner designed a customised 3D printed statement piece for Oscar winning costume designer Ruth E Carter for the night of the Academy Awards.
Starting with a 3D-scan of Ruth’s body, Julia Koerner found inspiration in African imagery from the photographer Seydou Kaïta, and digitally crafted afro-futuristic patterns to an asymmetrical ensemble that references the 1950’s fashion designs of Balenciaga. The technique used for 3D-Printing is known as Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), where a bed of powder is fused by a laser beam microscopically, layer by layer to fabricate the intricate 3D designs developed in the computer by Julia Koerner. The statement piece was manufactured by Materialise in Belgium, who Julia Koerner has been working with for over a decade.
3D Printing unveils the opportunity to fabricate intricate and mathematically precise geometries which cannot be made in any other technique. The design is developed and simulated in digital 3D-space and utilises codes and scripts to generate the patterns and their three dimensional effects. The material used is a strong and flexible polymer that is highly durable, the printing process itself takes several days within the laser sintering machine. The statement piece was designed and realised in less than three weeks.The statement piece features the cutting-edge in 3D-Design and 3D-Printing while being inspired by a combination of African traditional patterns and Parisian garment forms.
Images by Getty Images, Julia Koerner and Ger Ger