We are thrilled to announce the Textile Academy 2024 Bootcamp in Armenia!

This May, join us for an intensive week of hands-on workshops with international experts and locals, cultural visits and social events, distributed across the country, among the cities of Yerevan, Dilijan and Gyumri.🏞

Together with Fabricademy, during the week participants will explore crafts, digital and bio fabrication through a series of activities hosted at Fab Lab Armenia and in specific locations.

Participants will engage in various traditional practices, such as weaving kilim and rugs, felting, and dyeing wool using locally sourced ingredients. They will also delve into ancient techniques like batik, cyanotype, and linotype, merging craftsmanship with digital fabrication technology and DIY machines.

Moreover, they will learn how to biofabricate biomaterials as sustainable alternatives to the current ones. They will apply principles of digital and computational design for 3D printing on textiles and develop 3D models for leather molding.

In addition, participants will explore the world of soft robotics and wearable technology. The focus will be on creating inflatable designs and soft robots, while also learning about conductive materials and crafting soft sensors and circuits for wearable applications.

Limited seats available.

🔗 Check the Schedule and Book your spot today at bootcamp.textile-academy.org

📔 Plan your travel ahead! Learn everything you need to know about Armenia and Fabricademy Bootcamp 2024.

DECONSTRUCTIVE HEADS collection / ALASKA ACCESORIOS
Winner of the contest SAMSUNG EGO Innovation Project / 
Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Madrid
Project by Betiana Pavón / FabTextiles / Fabricademy BCN Student

Betiana Pavon, an Argentinian Accessories designer with her brand ¨ALASKA Accesorios¨ studied at Fabricademy Barcelona in 2018-19.
With her final project she applied to the Samsung Ego Innovation Prize and was selected to present a complete collection for the edition of July 2019 with a prize for development of 10.000 euros!

The project is focused on the design, prototyping and development of "head accessories". Re-referred to as "portable objects", a perfect excuse to crown the head with a distinctive piece, a piece that can be unique, that identifies directly with its user and interacts with it, using Samsung devices as a link.

The project was developed at Fab Textiles Lab in Fab Lab Barcelona for 1,5 month where all looks and custom electronics where designed and fabricated.

As for typologies and morphologies, the concept of “portable structures” is addressed, which can be constructed and deconstructed through modules, achieving almost abstract accessories.

The inspirational axis of this collection is the "Deconstructivist Movement" reflected in organic forms, fragmented, distorted and complex geometries ... product of the incorporation of new technologies (Hardware: machinery, electronics) and computational design tools (Software). The conception of this collection is based on the liberation of geometry and rules in general.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES / PROCESS

3D Print

The computational design allows a new reinterpretation of the forms, in this case applied in portable accessories. By erasing old construction limits, 3D printing allows for the realization of unique, custom-made pieces and contributing to a sustainable digital manufacturing model, where it is produced only on the basis of real demand, thus reducing the waste generated by the fashion industry.

Laser cut

The implementation of new materials (such as acrylic, technical textiles, etc.) and the inclusion of parametric digital patterns that allow the creation of fragmented geometries, distortion and complexity of shapes, require the use of new tools, such as laser cutting. The inclusion of this machinery in the manufacture of this type of parts is key, since it allows perfect finishes, pinpoint accuracy and reduces manual work. Thus achieving in a single step, fast and efficient cutting of pieces and perfect patterns in series.

SAMSUNG DEVICES / INTERACTION INTEGRATION
The main intention of this project is that Samsung devices are not only an addition in the proposed style, but that they interact directly as a link between the carrier and accessories. That is, include technology in the entire project.Runway Mercedes Benz Madrid Fashion Week / July 2019

LOOK 1 / Concentric Hat -Input: Sound vibrations (microphone sensor) -Output: Rhythmic flashing of the lights (neo pixels) integrated in the prototype. Visualization of the sound vibrations received at the moment, on the tablet device.

LOOK 2 / Aurora Cap -Input: The device is connected via Bluetooth using the Android APP "Adafruit Bluefruit". -Output: This APP allows the user to select between 16 million colors, the adjustable brightness of the light source and also use this app to generate their own color light show.

LOOK 3 / Lamp Hat
-The hat contains a custom board, in which a rhythmic code of the LEDs was turned on and off, based on the song of the catwalk, which was saved in ATtiny format. The LED light is channeled and is reflected in the lateral reflectance optical fiber.

LOOK 4 / Parametric Hat
-Input: A webcam incorporated into the accessory records in real time.
-Output: the filming of the runway of the model on the catwalk is displayed on the tablet device

LOOK 5 / Reflecting Hat
-The structure hat formed by a helmet printed in 3D and wing deconstructed parametrically achieved through laser cutting in methacrylate, is assembled and joined through ribbons of reflective material, which reacts to the light of the flashes.

LOOK 6 / Geological Hat
-Input: The device is connected via Bluetooth using the Android APP "Adafruit Bluefruit".
-Output: The user can select the color, but in this case of the neo pixels incorporated in the hat, which in turn are programmed to generate a loop circulation effect pattern around the helmet.

LOOK 7 / Vader Cap
-The user can change the light effects of the built-in LEDs through a button (custom circuit and board). In turn, the light is reflected in the "hair" of fiber optic embroidered by hand in the translucent layer.

PROJECT TEAM:

Project by Betiana Pavón
Mentoring by Anastasia Pistofidou
Design and production assistant Ana Correa
Electronics consulting and development Angel Muñoz and Ioannis Vogdanis
Developed in Fabtextiles, FabLab Barcelona, ​​IAAC Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.
 .
 ZAGV clothes
 Silvia Fado shoes

http:// Samsung EGO / INNOVATION PROJECT 2019 from ALASKA Accesorios on Vimeo.

http:// ALASKA Accesorios / Mercedes Benz Madrid Fashion Week / 2019 from ALASKA Accesorios on Vimeo.

ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS USED

Adafruit Feather M0 Bluefruit LE
 Attiny85
 Adafruit Microphone / Breakout Boards
 Programmable RGB LEDs
 BTF-LIGHTING pixels
 MakerHawk 3.7V rechargeable lithium battery
 Optical Fiber / Slide Glow

This year´s annual bootcamp will happen in ICELAND!

We believe that fashion education should be updated, embrace multidisciplinarity and change the current model of fast fashion to customized and sustainable. We love making , experimenting and innovating using hands on bottom up approaches and new technology. In this 40h course, we have included all the new tools a fashion designer should learn! If you are an educator, a professional or a student this is the course for you!

Reserve your place here 

The annual Fabricademy Bootcamp this year is focusing on blending traditional industrial processes with new technologies.  We learn from the contemporary industry with factory visits around Iceland and workshops at the Icelandic Textile Research Center. We explore materials , tools and digital fabrication technologies at the Fab Lab and design for a sustainable and inspired future.

Project development in groups every afternoon .

For any questions , please contact with us at [email protected]

This activity is powered by  DDMP project funded by Creative Europe

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Fab Textiles Booth, Reshape exhibition, In(3d)ustry, Fira Barcelona, 2017

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Here you can see the interview from the Reshaper team:

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Currently a 3d printer that prints clothes does not exist. In the sense that there is not any popular, low cost, numerically controlled deposition of textile matter (fibers) such as a textile 3d printer.  There were some previous projects that failed, but it is something that we will see in the near future. While I am writing this article, I am already foreseeing posibilites of textile printing and I hope can get some time to make some experiments. A good example of a new digital fabrication method would be the robotic weaving, but I guess that this is something old for the automotive industry and the weaving of carbon fibers.  The textile industry is extremely advanced and uses digital tools for producing patterns, stamps, techniques since long time now and we should be careful when saying ¨the first 3D printed cloth¨.  The most usual ways of using popular 3D printing in Fashion is to Make ¨chain like¨ structures  in order to obtain a textile behavior or use flexible filaments or even 3D print on Fabric.

This 3D printed TOP is made out of many pieces soldered together. due to the limitations of the machine size. The file is open source and can be found on thingiverse as a customizable thing, anyone can use the customizer to prescribe the width and length. Here you can download the file.

The Customizable Chain Mail on Rhinoceros software.

The technique of joining the pieces is actually melting the chain with a hot needle, opening it on one side, add it a new piece and re-closing it with the same PLA filament. It is meticulous but finally there is no other piece added and it’s clean work.

For creating this 3d printed TOP you need to assemble 12 pieces. You have to know that 1 piece take 12 hours to print, so do the math for 12 pieces… 144 hours without counting the assembled part. Today, it still take a lot of time to create a 3d print garment but we can imagine that it’s gonna change fast ! Still the amount of material it uses is only 84grams and it makes a proof of the theory ¨ optimize in the material, take your time to make ¨ , well, in this case, it is ¨take your time to make 3D printer!¨cause you just leave the print overnight.

Textiles Academy Bootcamp was an intensive 40h course that took place at IaaC Fab Lab Barcelona with 25 participants from US, Canada, France, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Holland, Chile, Sweden, Greece, England, India and with 20 more participants in the fashion of distributed online education, joining remotely from Wellington, Santiago de Chile, Amsterdam, Seoul, Kamp Lintfort, Leon, Madrid, Lima, Limerick.

Participants from all over the world gathered in Fab Lab Barcelona to attend the bootcamp, it was great to see many friends and to meet new people, all sharing the same excitement for the week-long journey about to start! In Germany, the group at Fab Lab Kamp-Lintfort, mentored by Adriana Cabrera, also a Fab Academy alumni, participated to all week’s activities producing many tests for all the hands-on and three projects.

The Textile Academy Bootcamp was the kick off and a pilot course to test the forthcoming Fabricademy, a new textile academy that will run in multiple places all over the world simultaneously, starting mid September 2017. 

Missed it? Don’t worry! We decided to publish this short summary to keep everybody who is interested in the Textile Academy updated.

Introducing the Fabricademy program to the network and brainstorming on what are the requirements in infrastructure and skills in order to be able to run the Fabricademy.

Fabricademy, a new textile academy is will be functioning on the same principles and infrastructure of the global Fab Lab network, but focused on new alternative materials, processes and techniques related to textiles, wearables and soft fabrication. The class will be launched in September 2017, with a top level faculty and an extensive program of 13 weeks, followed by two months of individual project development. Many labs around the world have already expressed interest in participating to this program and we will be opening soon students applications. The course is planned to be carried out all over the world, and the bootcamp is already showing that we will be able to involve everybody interested no matter in which continent they are based.

OUR WIKI ! All the content, videos and teaching materials produced during the bootcamp has been edited and collected on the Textile Academy Wiki, the basis for the Fabricademy syllabus, accessible to all the Bootcamp participants.We’ll be updating constantly this repository with new materials, expanding the classes and adding useful resources such as glossaries, recipes and much more…keep an eye on it and feel free to send us suggestions and interesting material to be added to our growing repository!  

Day 1 – Hacking the fashion industry-seamless clothes

To start the day we did a round of introductions from the local participants, the Bootcamp staff and remote sites. The aim of the first day was to define the context in which we are going to work, the reasons behind this forthcoming and explorative textile movement in Fab Labs and other typologies of innovation labs.Anastasia Pistofidou presented the Fab Textiles project and Cecilia Raspanti showed her work at the Textile Lab Amsterdam and on the TCBL EU project.Anastasia and Zoe discussing about open source economic models in the textile and clothing industry

Zoe Romano, founder of the wemake.cc makerspace and expert in circular fashion, followed with her lecture on “Hacking the fashion industry”, where she presented her work describing a new approach in the design and production of clothing using networks, hacked and open hardware machines, open source softwares. Zoe gave a comprehensive overview about open source branding and gave many examples of open designs that can be realised by anyone in an accordingly equipped lab.

For the Hands-On sessions this day was focused on exploring laser cutting techniques. Anastasia introduced the topic with a tutorial for an effective and safe use of the laser for cutting and engraving fabrics.  The objective of the hands on section was to create seamless clothing & reconfigurable modular systems, using any 2D or 3D software to create patterns ready for cutting. Participants were challenged to design and test a modular connection for a pattern in order to assemble textiles in 3D shapes. Lots of interesting projects started to take shape from the different groups all over the world in their research on laser cut inter-laceable patterns.Exploring first interlocking tests. Curious? Take a peak in the exciting outcomes on the JAM day photos!Viki Fernandez seamless patterns, Brazil In Peru, the Fab Lab ESAN group showed mastery of seamless design producing lots of examples with different materials. Ana de Lara from Santiago de Chile, a member of the opentextiles.org project, produced this beautiful skirt seamless pattern and right, other possibilities combining laser cutting and weaving

Day 2-  –  New materials, alternatives processes

The goal for this second day was to learn how to work with new material and processes aimed at growing your own clothes. While this might sound sci-fi, Anastasia and Cecilia guided the participants in this innovative topic with their lectures on Bio-Couture, Bio-Plastics and Bio Dyes. Participants and mentors joining the lecture were really impressed by the projects shown and the global issues related to the use of traditional materials and processes, that have a huge impact on the environment and labour conditions in developing countries. The textile industry, second most polluting industry on earth, often tries to hide the environmental impact of certain chemicals used to process materials and textiles. Fabricademy aims also to explore more friendly and relevant alternatives around these issues, highlighting research paths of the ones driving these innovative future materials and processes.

On the technical side the two sessions started a very interesting recipe exchange, for creating and mixing materials, for dyeing with natural ingredients and growing vegan leather. All these materials are being collected and will be part of the Fabricademy online resources. What made this day really great were the hands-on sessions! The local workgroups and all the labs connected remotely started experimenting with the materials covered in the lectures, a meter of kombucha leather, grown for the last two months, was unrolled and cut into pieces to be molded into shape and a rainbow of colors populated the room showing the participant’s bio-dyeing skills.

Bacteria textile dyeing

  Growing bacteria, dyeing textiles

In Germany, the group at Fab Lab Kamp-Lintfort, mentored by Adriana Cabrera following the exercises at their biolab

Natural Dyes

Wendy Neale, Creative Director of Fab Lab Wellington in New Zealand preparing her natural dyes.

 Natural dyeing of textile with turmeric, hibiscus, turmeric and ph modifiers

BIOPLASTICS

@fabricademy Instagram Cooking Bioplastics based on Glycerine and Glycerol Combination of bioplastics with fabric and pigments applied on a thin surface to create flexible sheets of bioplastic

KOMBUCHA CELLULOSE SKIN Kombucha skin of 1mx1m grown for 2 months using the biocouture recipe of Susan Lee for growing your own cellulose fabric

 Molding kombucha skin and knitting  Dried kombucha skin

Day 3 – Computation Fashion

The main theme of this day was to investigate how computers and digital technologies can revolutionize the work of fashion designers and common people alike.  The first lecture, by Amber Slooten, a dutch fashion designer, gave participants a glimpse of new ways for designing fashion virtually and digitally, using CAD tools, as well as an overview of the tools used. Aldo Sollazzo from Noumena, a world-renowned expert in computational design, introduced tools such as Grasshopper and plugins needed for computational couture with a really extensive lecture. During the hands-on session he also gave many examples, all ready to be customized, for modeling ready-for-production 3D printed pieces around a digital mannequin. The topics presented are so vast, that many participants promised to get back to it once home, using the resources provided as a starting point for further experimentation. In parallel with the Digital Couture Hands-On session Anastasia presented several fabrication techniques.  From 3D printing on textiles, to thermoforming plexiglass on CNC milled body parts. More 3D printing on Fabrics and 3d printing with Filaflex auxetic structures. CnC milling of high density foam parts of the human body made in MakeHuman serve as the mold for thermoforming laser cut acrylic.  Wendy Neale documented her bootcamp outcomes in her blog where you can see interesting experiments with dyeing, digital couture with grasshopper and more.

Day 4 – Electronics – Soft Sensors- Attiny – Open Hardware

Electronic components kits for bootcamp attendees in Barcelona

The focus of the day was to enter the electronics, wearables field and the development of soft sensors using conductive fabric. With the help of Angel Muñoz and Christian Rizzuti participants explored the possibilities of smart leds, the Arduino family of platforms, e-textile sensors, motors, SMA, and fabric speakers. Christian Rizzuti introducing DIY soft sensors, bend, stretch and pressure.

For the hands-on session Liza Stark, Content + Community Lead at littleBits showed interesting projects based on the ATTiny microcontroller, and participants engaged soldering, assembling and integrating basic textile circuits under the mentor’s supervision.What we all will remember about this session is Liza telling us that “the ATTiny is our new best friend”. She presented a wonderful selection of projects she developed, one of which, was her actual wedding dress, displaying though led lights her heart beat and the one of her husband.Liza Stark doing the tutorial and hands-on for the ATtiny Embroidery Swatch.

The artist duo Varvara Guljajeva & Mar Canet introduced participants to the topic of open source machines for the textile industry. Their Knittic and Circular Knittic projects are pioneer experiments of bringing soft fabrication tools and machines at low cost into the fab lab network.Circular Knittic project by Var & Mar

Day 5 – JAM

After a super full week, the JAM day was the perfect moment to bring together all the lessons learnt during the bootcamp and make stuff! We had an amazing team of mentors helping the participants in the project fabrication, a great thanks goes to them for the support and passion.

The group mentored by ALEX MURRAY-LESLIE, developed a woven shoulder piece that embedded Corning Fibrance Light-Diffusing Fibers from Versalume, reflective textiles and other types of yarns. 

 They 3d wove the piece using a loom that was laser-cut at Fab Lab Barcelona, and the elements developed during the jam became part of the “eco cyborg” outfit for the performance YoMo for MWC, the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, that was directed by Alex herself.

A laser cut cape combined different techniques learnt along the way during the course, was animated through electronics components, in which it’s shoulder elements moved according to the stretch achieved with a soft, knitted sensor. CRISTIAN RIZZUTI  lead this group exploring with them extensively all the different possibilities in implementing electronics in the garment. 

The third group, mentored by  ZOE ROMANO developed an entire outfit, composed by a bolero and skirt, entirely constructed by variations of the same modular element that were laser cut in neoprene and integrated a sewn circuit with a lilypad and a stretch sensor. The combined modules created a structural and decorative tridimensional pattern creating an incredibly complex and beautiful look. The choice of material also impacted the final result, neoprene has clean, structured but soft properties that enhance the pattern and shape of the garments.

The fourth group, mentored by ANNEMIE MAES, tested the use of kombucha, the vegan leather, for molding tridimensional objects. They implemented conductive wires between the layers, to understand the possibilities to embed electronic sensor in the still wet kombucha in order to create a seamless object. They also tested the effect of different types of natural dyes on the wet kombucha, to further study the outcomes once the material is dry.

This series of experiments have the aim to bring the research of Annemie in order to ¨ grow your beehive ¨ project a step further. Kombucha skin dyed with Hibiscus, Kurkuma, bois de campèche  Molding Kombucha skin on a CNC high density foam fractal pattern.

During the afternoon ALI YERDEL came and gave a demo of spraying fibers using his ¨Candy Tool¨, this is the method that ¨Fiber Dress¨of FabTextiles was made.Completed cocoon made with natural fibers Ali Yerdel showing the Candy Gun operation

The outcome of the bootcamp are many projects, made in Barcelona and around the globe, by the great community born out of the course. In Germany, the group at Fab Lab Kamp-Lintfort showing their week’s activities and projects they made.

Conclusions

We consider the Textile Academy Bootcamp a great proof that these topics are valuable to the Fab Lab network but also to a larger audience of artists, professionals and individuals. It also makes us even more motivated to work on the Fabricademy course for this autumn, which will include many more topics and more in depth investigations than those covered by the short and intense bootcamp. We hope to be able to host it in as many labs as possible, so people around the world would have the opportunity to join and participate in this amazing fast growing network. In Germany, the group at Fab Lab Kamp-Lintfort showing their week’s activities and projects they made.

Next Events

We’ll be participating to the Fab Lab Festival 2017 in Toulouse on the 11-14 May, were we will present the program to the European network. You will also be able to join us at the upcoming FAB13 Conference in Santiago de Chile on 31 July - 06 August.  If you are interested in joining or participating with your lab to the program, write us at [email protected]

Organized with love by : Anastasia Pistofidou, Cecilia Raspanti, Fiore Basile with the support of IaaC Fab Lab Barcelona