Work Text:
Was working through some Garak scenes and got completely sidetracked thinking of all the incredible textiles that become possible when you have access to a 3D printer that can duplicate natural fibers. So here are my thoughts on replicator-assisted tailoring, what the workflow would look like, and some of the fun things you could do with it.
First Draft
I’m assuming it’s hard to build replicator patterns for (good) clothing completely from scratch. So probably, the first step is to make the item in a more traditional manner. Sew/knit/crochet/etc. the garment, using a fabric or yarn with similar properties to what we want to use in the finished piece. Scan this in as the initial template for the replicator.
A working tailor would have a bank of standard or template patterns to be able to quickly make certain kinds of garments, without the initial physical draft. But more complex orders would still need some physical drafting, even if only for a portion of the garment.
Cleanup
Open up the initial scan and find all the loose ends and cut edges. Fuse them to each other so every thread is fully continuous, with no end or beginning. Delete all seams, connecting the fabric threads directly. If the seam is needed for structural reasons, make the fibers thicker/stiffer in that area so it’s reinforced but still smooth. This will make it more comfortable, but also stronger, because there’s no longer a break in the fibers or an edge for stuff to catch on. If it’s a decorative seam (ex: between two different colors), preserve it, but both sides of the fabric can now be the “right” side, because we no longer need the sewn area to be reachable by needle, it can be fully hidden.
People wouldn’t generally need to fuse all these threads individually, there would be programs that just find all that stuff automatically. Then it highlights the areas that need fusing and offers a menu of different presets for how to connect all the ends together.
Optimizing Fit
Now put the item on and fine-tune the shaping and movement. Since we know exactly where the fabric will sit in the finished piece, detailed shaping can be baked into the weave/knit/etc. of the textile itself. Fabrics usually have one direction that’s stretchier than other directions. Sewing and knitting patterns try to arrange that stretch in specific ways during cutting or shaping. For example, most chest binders are not stretchy at all in the front, but they have horizontal stretch in the back. This horizontal stretch pulls the fat horizontally, shifting it toward the sides and back. Fat isn’t really compressible (unlike lungs!), it can only be moved. By controlling stretch direction + non-stretchy areas, we decide where it moves to, applying it to best suit the silhouette we want to achieve.
But bodies don’t actually operate on a perfect horizontal/vertical grid. The ideal binder would likely be moving the fat diagonally, slightly upward or downward depending on the wearer’s specific body shape, instead of straight out to the sides. And aside from the silhouette, muscles, tendons, and joints also need to move, and we want the stretch direction to support those movements. So, if given the option, we would be shading in many different stretch directions in a single garment, along with areas that don’t stretch at all. Replicated fabrics could change stretch direction and stretchiness level all over the fabric, with no seams between these direction changes, so we could apply these stretch directions much more precisely, matching them better to an individual body.
I picture the shading step as something like a clone tool. The designer would lasso a bit of fabric in the pattern, rotate it a little, then reinsert it. The program figures out how to fill in short rows along the edges of the rotated area to smoothly transition between the different knit directions. There would also be programs for auto-calculating stretch shadings. If given a scan of the item being worn, the program flags areas of greater tension or compression. Using that info, it re-flows the stretch directions and adds tiny shaping adjustments to remove those hotspots.
Perhaps this is what Garak is actually measuring with that laser thing; it’s not measuring the person’s body, it’s measuring how the fabric interacts with the body. Where does the fabric seem to be particularly stressed? Where is it wearing through? Where is it folding and piling up? With that data, the next garment can have better stretch shading, allowing it to move better on this specific person.
Details
If this is a holosuite costume, we might put some decorative loose threads/seams back into the outfit for “authenticity”. Or just give people the first draft version… but if they’re used to replicator-optimized fabrics, they probably won’t be that comfortable.
Even for non-costume clothing, there’d be plenty of room for artistry and skill. The initial fabric used in the first draft would play a huge role in how the final fabric behaves, so a good tailor would still need to hunt for nice fabrics (although they may not need to actually purchase them, if they can surreptitiously scan them instead). Likewise, any major sewing or shaping defects in the first draft would make it much harder to create a polished finished piece. When adjusting the pattern, the designer would have to think carefully about how exactly to fuse loose ends in different areas of the piece, what specific fusion will create the best result structurally and visually.
On the flip side, details like hand stitching would be a bit less sought after — a replicator, unlike a sewing machine, could create stitches topologically identical to hand sewn ones.
Miscellaneous Notes
- We can do lots of silly things with our ability to create fully-closed loops of thread; for example, we could create a chainmail-like fabric out of teeny-tiny circles of thread, which would be drapey like a knit but not as stretchy.
- Knits can now have increases in both directions, instead of needing decreases (which don’t lay as flat). Darts in woven fabric would also lie completely flush.
- Tubular knit fabric has no jogs, because the end of each row connects to the beginning of the same row, rather than the row above/below.
- Woven and knit fabrics can be blended together, with the same threads running continuously through both areas.
- Instead of sewing or knitting a repeating motif, we can just swatch it, then copy it out in the replicator pattern.
- No need to align prints perfectly in the first draft, we can move (or even resize) them in the replicator pattern.
- When doing alterations, we can keep the old item and just make a copy with the alterations applied.
- Padding makes a big comeback in everyday wear because tailors can easily create smooth, perfectly-placed gradients of fabric thickness to alter the silhouette. No more weird floating shoulderpads… unless people start wearing them for fun.