I understand the appeal of this tech to techies. It's so cool to automate knitting!
Though it totally misses the point of actually knitting something, with your own hands. The time it takes, the details you need to think about, the skills you work on perfecting, the quiet evening on the sofa or in a cafe with friends, chatting and knitting away, all that goes into a piece of clothing that you've knitted. Letting a machine do that is completely missing out.
I feel similarly about AI generated music. Taking the musician out of the loop misses the point of the whole thing.
So in theory 3D-Knitting can produce a made-to-measure garment on demand, and has been able to for years.
And yet, no one actually offers to sell you a made-to-measure knitted garment. Why?
A few theories:
- Knits are stretchy so there's limited demand for M2M
- DFM/software issues - no one actually knows to generate a pattern from a set of sizes without human intervention
- Issues with OEE - it's inefficient to wait for orders to produce the garments because the capital cost of the machines is so high.
- Logistics - you don't want to deal with shipping everyone the right order.
So this is an ad for company that purchased an off-the-shelf industrial knitting machine and is trying to sell it as some new novel innovation with cringe "3d knitting" branding. If you go to the the manufacturer site you can find same talking points and plenty of logos: https://www.shimaseiki.com/wholegarment/
No, the bottom of the page says they subcontract production. So it's an infomercial for a company that markets sweaters they may or may not design. And they disclose that in the article, if very subtly.
Absolutely no relation to these guys, but I have a hobby knitwear line and a longstanding fascination with Shima Seki.
The SS machines are unique, as far as I know. They are also SUPER hard to work with -- the software is opaque. The design skills matter. Those design skills have to hook up to the SS machine design system.
Hooking yarn is not the same thing as say bending steel - in terms of reliability, ease, variations. Lots of complexity here.
There have been some attempts at doing 3d knitting direct to retail, I recall an MIT startup that had a boutique on Newbury street, and eventually went D2C only, as well as some European brands.
The SS machines are a little bit of a product in search of a market as far as I can see -- they are amazing, they waste very little product, in theory unique, custom garments can be put out rapidly. In practice, they seem to be used as small-run / custom-run tools -- but the only way to provide that is to have skilled designers and engineers -- hence the middle layer.
They pitch this as the panacea to fast fashion, but surely the solution to fast fashion is just to not buy and throw away so many clothes? I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends. When my last laptop broke I was kind of happy. I thought "ooh now I can upgrade to a shiny new laptop guilt-free". I think that's the real problem.
> I don't believe we buy cheap clothes because we can't find good quality clothes that last, but because we like owning lots of clothes and keeping up with trends.
I will buy 5 things that last for 10 years if somebody gave me the option. Otherwise no, I'm not chasing fashion trends.
Interestingly, this potentially has applications beyond clothing.
A while back, Lee Valley did a 3D knitted chisel roll using Kevlar and other materials, in support of the Canadian company which invented the 3D knitting process used (unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have the money or need for --- I've since updated my woodworking toolkit and have a nice set of chisels which it would have been perfect for, except it was discontinued and is no longer available...)
I interviewed these guys for an article on the use of seaweed in yarn and fabric. And I bought the 3D knit seaweed sweater. Great team, with a lot of heart and good intentions.
I'm also a hand knitter, and I don't really see any conflict between what they're doing and hand knitting. The grist of the yarn that you use as a hand knitter is generally much thicker than these machines commonly use. Commercial 3D knitting machines can do all of the stretchy, thin, and light stuff that the modern wardrobe is built around.
As folks note, this technology was really pioneered by Shimaseki's work in Japan just decades ago. What OC and the similar Brooklyn-based Tailored Industry are really innovating on is the business model and connection to production process. Folks like this are really serious about not producing all of the waste that comes with most fashion production processes, and it shows up at several levels of the stack.
For the HN crowd, TI's platform gives you more of a sense of why this sort of tech is really like the cloud for knitwear: https://tailoredindustry.com/platform
Really a fascinating part of the global fashion production world, and one we would all benefit from seeing grow.
I have a small sweater line I’m looking at doing in china right now but I have a long lasting fascination with the shima seki machines. If you were doing a short fashion run would TI be appropriate? How does one get their preferred yarn over to someone like TI?
This is an ad for a company that drop ships their product from another company that has made its business on offering production and fulfillment of canned (but customizable) 3D knit styles.
My grandfather wrote a scifi utopia featuring printed-on-human garments similar to this ("Fahrt nach Futuras").
So you would wake up, wash then stand on some platform and have your daily outfit knitted on you. Not sure how he worked around the risk of strangling though lol.
yeah. I was waiting for at least some kind of portal into the actual engineering and craft of the thing due to the name of the article, and was left with an advertisement flavored sour aftertaste.
Would be cool if it could also de-knit to modify clothing or reuse later. I.e if there is a hole: automatically deknit, splice in a replacement and fix it. Or if your belly growth: deknit and make that section slightly wider.
And can you use finer yarn as well, like lace? The reason a sweater is knit like it is, is because of the tradeoff between knitting time and material needed. But if labor becomes free, you should be able to knit much bigger yet more delicate stuff.
Funny that they speak so negatively about "fast fashion". If anything I would expect on-demand clothes production contribute to an _increase_ in that phenomenon, rather than the opposite.
Can anyone else comment on the durability claims here - I wear a lot of knitwear but in my experience it is almost never the case that they fail at the seams. Is the cut/sew mechanism of fabrication part of the weakening? (my jumpers tent to either wear through in elbows (patchable!) or ultimately get nicked/cut by something like a branch I failed to avoid).
I'm kind of in this space - 3d knitting is pretty interesting, but knitting a sweater like that takes a long time (I forget how long, but I think it's 1-2 hours), so it's not really a solution for working at any sort of scale. Unless you build up inventory or have a ton of machines. But the machines are super expensive compared to regular knitting machines.
I also think that wholegarment knits look kind of cheap and that sewing actually adds structural integrity and durability to a garment.
But anything knitting or clothes related is really fun and challenging and good for them for making a business out of it.
"Most important 3D-knitting offers the promise of customization, or as we call it, the chipotle effect. Size and fit are the number one reasons people return clothes purchased online and in person.
In the next few years, maybe even months, we'll be able to solve that problem for good. Since 3D-knitting allows us to knit on demand, we'll soon be able to offer every size imaginable in every style, material, and color."
24 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 44.2 ms ] threadThough it totally misses the point of actually knitting something, with your own hands. The time it takes, the details you need to think about, the skills you work on perfecting, the quiet evening on the sofa or in a cafe with friends, chatting and knitting away, all that goes into a piece of clothing that you've knitted. Letting a machine do that is completely missing out.
I feel similarly about AI generated music. Taking the musician out of the loop misses the point of the whole thing.
And yet, no one actually offers to sell you a made-to-measure knitted garment. Why?
A few theories: - Knits are stretchy so there's limited demand for M2M - DFM/software issues - no one actually knows to generate a pattern from a set of sizes without human intervention - Issues with OEE - it's inefficient to wait for orders to produce the garments because the capital cost of the machines is so high. - Logistics - you don't want to deal with shipping everyone the right order.
The SS machines are unique, as far as I know. They are also SUPER hard to work with -- the software is opaque. The design skills matter. Those design skills have to hook up to the SS machine design system.
Hooking yarn is not the same thing as say bending steel - in terms of reliability, ease, variations. Lots of complexity here.
There have been some attempts at doing 3d knitting direct to retail, I recall an MIT startup that had a boutique on Newbury street, and eventually went D2C only, as well as some European brands.
The SS machines are a little bit of a product in search of a market as far as I can see -- they are amazing, they waste very little product, in theory unique, custom garments can be put out rapidly. In practice, they seem to be used as small-run / custom-run tools -- but the only way to provide that is to have skilled designers and engineers -- hence the middle layer.
Yes, I want one.
I will buy 5 things that last for 10 years if somebody gave me the option. Otherwise no, I'm not chasing fashion trends.
This isnt a hype board, for consumer products. Its supposed to be a tech first community.
https://www.printables.com/model/1483991-fall-is-looming-the...
A while back, Lee Valley did a 3D knitted chisel roll using Kevlar and other materials, in support of the Canadian company which invented the 3D knitting process used (unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have the money or need for --- I've since updated my woodworking toolkit and have a nice set of chisels which it would have been perfect for, except it was discontinued and is no longer available...)
I'm also a hand knitter, and I don't really see any conflict between what they're doing and hand knitting. The grist of the yarn that you use as a hand knitter is generally much thicker than these machines commonly use. Commercial 3D knitting machines can do all of the stretchy, thin, and light stuff that the modern wardrobe is built around.
As folks note, this technology was really pioneered by Shimaseki's work in Japan just decades ago. What OC and the similar Brooklyn-based Tailored Industry are really innovating on is the business model and connection to production process. Folks like this are really serious about not producing all of the waste that comes with most fashion production processes, and it shows up at several levels of the stack.
For the HN crowd, TI's platform gives you more of a sense of why this sort of tech is really like the cloud for knitwear: https://tailoredindustry.com/platform
Really a fascinating part of the global fashion production world, and one we would all benefit from seeing grow.
So you would wake up, wash then stand on some platform and have your daily outfit knitted on you. Not sure how he worked around the risk of strangling though lol.
Still funny. Thanks making it reality!
And can you use finer yarn as well, like lace? The reason a sweater is knit like it is, is because of the tradeoff between knitting time and material needed. But if labor becomes free, you should be able to knit much bigger yet more delicate stuff.
Edit: ah, deknitting is called frogging
But a competently sewn seam really ought to last at least as long as the fabric.
I also think that wholegarment knits look kind of cheap and that sewing actually adds structural integrity and durability to a garment.
But anything knitting or clothes related is really fun and challenging and good for them for making a business out of it.
In the next few years, maybe even months, we'll be able to solve that problem for good. Since 3D-knitting allows us to knit on demand, we'll soon be able to offer every size imaginable in every style, material, and color."
I had hoped they provided this already.