What will be the impact of 3D printing on mass fashion?

Viewed as a decisive element of the industry of the future, additive manufacturing (AM) has applications in many domains, including the automotive, aeronautic, healthcare and construction sectors.

AM, which creates objects by adding material – as opposed to traditional ‘subtractive’ manufacturing – can be described (very roughly) as the industrial application of 3D printing, or creating physical objects from a 3D digital model. This ultra-flexible process is relevant for producing prosthetics, spare parts for machinery or even allowing teenagers dabbling in their high-school science lab to make (and successfully market) fidget spinners.

“By 2020 - 40 years after the development of the first commercial machines - analysis of the AM sector showed it had grown to a €13.4 billion industry with a 22% annual growth rate,” explains McKinsey & Co. “The sector remains extremely dynamic, with more than 200 players competing to develop new hardware, software, and materials.” It is projected to keep growing at the same rate until 2028.

In the fashion industry, the use of AM so far has been mostly restricted to prototyping and single runway pieces, or niche markets of high-end customized accessories, like XYZbag's handbags and Viptie's neckties.

Although global retailers have started experimenting with AM, like Adidas which ran two “Speedfactories” in Germany and the US for three years before transferring the AM technology to its Asian suppliers, large-scale applications in the mass apparel industry are just emerging. They are limited by high energy and procurement costs, as well as technical drawbacks since present AM systems do not process natural fibres (cotton, wool) well.

Yet most experts believe it is only a matter of time before AM becomes a key manufacturing tool for the mass fashion industry, which harms the environment and society. Especially fast fashion, which is forecast to keep rising and reach a value of approximately $185 billion in 2027. Chile’s desert dumping ground for fashion leftovers, or tragedies like the Rana Plaza factories’ collapse in 2014, illustrate how degenerate the fashion production system has become – not least concerning the working conditions on the shop floors.

Wikifactory co-founder and The Ethical Economy author Nicolai Peitersen claims that 3D printing could be the key to a sustainable fashion industry. Its emergence is widely believed to make fashion production more efficient while it may, at the same time, provide opportunities to move production back to main consumer markets in Europe or North America. Both developments stand to significantly reduce the costs and emissions in this industry.

Yet, the results of our recent research project paint a different picture of the social sustainability implications of 3D printing in the fashion industry. While our findings support the notion that this technology is likely to reshape where and how fashion is produced, they suggest that these changes will do little to solve the social sustainability issues in fashion production.

To understand why the potential economic benefits of 3D printing use in fashion production are unlikely to result in increased social sustainability, it is pertinent to consider the governance structures prevalent in the fashion industry. In typical fashion supply chains, stark power differentials prevail between retail firms like Adidas, Zara or Puma, and their suppliers, meaning that the former strongly influence where and how apparel is produced.

Thus, one should remain sceptical about who would reap the benefits of 3D printing’s emergence. Our research suggests that more powerful actors in the downstream supply chain will capture any resulting economic gains. In consequence, the detrimental working conditions in mass fashion production would remain largely unchanged.

Still, one silver lining could lie in what Peitersen describes as reconceiving fashion as “an appreciated art form.” If the innovativeness of 3D printing would incite the big fashion companies to move away from their current low-cost, (ultra-)fast-fashion strategy, the positive impact on the environment as well as social sustainability would be gigantic. The technology’s potential for creating personalised fashion items for the masses could just be the incentive they need.

For more information on the work of ESCP in sustainability in fashion click here.