3DS Fashion Lab: Technology with style

In 2011, Dassault Systèmes launched 3DS Fashion Lab, a technology incubator dedicated to fashion designers and stylists. The goal? Marry the engineering creativity of Dassault Systèmes with the artistic inventiveness and industry know-how of designers to develop a fashion offering that integrates the design, simulation and collaboration tools required to create an entire fashion collection.

If the front office of the fashion industry is a glittering runway filled with supermodels, the back office is an intensely competitive global market where fashion houses and designers must continually innovate to satisfy customers' changing tastes. In addition, an increase in the number of collections per year and the rising use of the Internet as a sales vehicle are forcing companies to multiply the way their brands are marketed and displayed.

With the stakes so high, a growing population within the fashion industry believes virtual 3D will bring their art to a new level, allowing them to innovate and explore areas never before imagined. "Fashion designers can create an article of clothing directly in 3D by 'clay modeling' the fabric directly on a virtual mannequin," said Jérôme Bergeret, Director Consumer Goods, Dassault Systèmes. "The style variants are endless and the time saved represents a real cost advantage."

Partners in creation

Bringing the 3D virtual realm to the fashion industry is the goal of Dassault Systèmes' 3DS Fashion Lab. The Fashion Lab is a technological incubator of ideas born and nurtured through a partnership between Dassault Systèmes and some of fashion industry's most creative talents. The objective is two-fold: provide partners with the tools and services that will help bring their ideas to life using 3D virtual technology, and in exchange diversify Dassault Systèmes' offering to satisfy the specific needs of fashion professionals.

Dassault Systèmes officially launched its Fashion Lab at the Paris Spring-Summer 2011 Fashion Week during the show of Julien Fournié, one of the industry's most promising designers. Fond of new technologies, Fournié belongs to a new generation of designers that believes 3D virtual technology can propel haute couture to new heights. This is why he agreed to be a design industry ambassador to the 3ds Fashion Lab, exchanging ideas with Dassault Systèmes that will forge the company's future solutions dedicated to high-end fashion.

"The Fashion Lab has much to gain thanks to Julien Fournié's collaboration," said Monica Menghini, Global VP, Consumer Goods, CPG & Retail at Dassault Systèmes. "His input will help fulfill the Lab's mission — to develop 3D virtual modeling and collaborative tools that respond to the needs of the fashion industry." And because this is a diverse industry, Dassault Systèmes continues to welcome other actors to its Fashion Lab; it recently formed partnerships with designers in ready-to-wear apparel and luxury watch making.