This document summarizes a scientific conference paper on industrially custom-made clothing. The paper discusses how 3D body scanning, 3D CAD systems, virtual try-on, and smart cards can enable made-to-measure garment manufacturing and online apparel shopping. It describes how 3D scanning can provide individualized electronic mannequins linked to clothing CAD/CAM systems to produce custom clothing. The impact is expected to benefit all segments of the clothing industry by supporting size standardization and using innovative visualization technologies to increase online customer confidence in clothing purchases.

1. ‘
08
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
21 – 22 November 2008, GABROVO
INDUSTRIALLY CUSTOM-MADE CLOTHING
Gordana Colovic, Ph.D.
The College of Textile-Design, Technology and Management, Belgrade
Danijela Paunovic, Ph.D.
The College of Textile-Design
Technology and Management, Belgrade
Goran Savanovic, Ph.D.
The College of Textile-Design
Technology and Management, Belgrade
Abstract
Permanent changes that characterizes fashion, mean creativity of designers’ team with the identification of products that
are necessary for consumers. The concept of the research into clothing design must be in correlation with designers,
consumers and profit in odder to get the base for future business, connect theory and practice in marketing analysis and to
determine new product strategy. We are confronted with permanent decrease of garments sale as a result of constant changes
of fashion trends, saturated markets, and a small purchasing power as well as of consumers’ habits and taste. In order to stop
sale decrease it is necessary to change or improve the current product. European countries evolving around the concepts of
made-to-measure garment manufacturing and the new generation of online apparel shopping. The combination of these new
services has been made now possible by the emergence of technologies such as 3D whole -body scanners, 3D CAD systems for
the customization of existing styles, virtual-try -on visualization techniques and the new generation of smartcards.
Keywords: garment, manufacturing, 2D, 3D, quality.
INTRODUCTION
Despite the globalization and internalization
of competition and surplus of apparel
production, high labour costs and other
economic pressures, apparel products are still
being produced using traditional methods and
machinery, the mechanics of which have not
fundamentally changed since the seventeenth
century, even nowadays when the materials
produced are very flexibly and diverse in texture
and properties. In developing the industry, the
nature of interaction between machinery, fabric
and operatives has to be taken into account, and
this poses some real problems if one has to put
forward realistic solutions for future industrial
development. Reports on findings in the area of
intelligent garment manufacture which is a
means of introducing flexibility, quality,
production efficiency and maximization of
resources in the apparel industry.
In the clothing industry, computer aided tools for
designing garments are usually in 2D and they
do not allow the fitting of a garment on a
mannequin. In recent years, there is a great deal
of research for 3D garment design. In most of the
developed software tools, the user draws the 2D
pattern of the garment parts and the system
triangulates these patterns and converts them into
physically - based models. The purpose of our
system is to design various garment models with
different textile materials. As in the garment
industry, we create garments from 2D patterns
and then sew them together.
For the 3D simulation of clothes, we have used a
spring mass model. Thus, internal forces such as
bending, stretching, damping forces of the fabric
can be parameterized. This provides us with the
ability to implement different types of fabric by
playing with parameters. In addition, external
forces such as wind, gravity or air resistance can
be applied to the cloth and the behaviour of the
garment under different conditions can be
observed.
CAD IN GARMENT INDUSTRY
The EU clothing and textile industries are
characterised by very intense international
competition. EU producers face fierce
competition from the exports of new
industrialised countries (NICs), whose low wage
costs and low social charges give them a
considerable competitive advantage. Labour
costs probably represent the most important cost
factor in the manufacture of clothing, where
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2. labour remains the determining element in the
production process.
The European clothing industry is therefore
handicapped at present in the field of low-cost
mass-produced clothing. It needs to seek the
development of new market opportunities, based
on customisation, combined with the traditional
creativity of European designers and the creation
of vertical networks of retailers and
manufacturers. This is one of the alternatives,
based on the exploitation of the competitive
advantage of proximity, which is critical for the
cost-effectiveness and success of customised
services (delivery costs and delivery times).
Many of the characteristics of a garment that
are decisive in the consumer decision-making
process (predominantly fit) are difficult to
communicate virtually. Selecting the right size is
not a straightforward decision, since different
manufacturers use different size charts for
different
types
of
garments.
Size
recommendation is a problem of relating body
measurements to individual garment sizes.
Internet shopping for clothing products is
increasing rapidly in Europe. However, it still
represents a minor percentage of total apparel
sales through traditional channels. A difficulty
that arises in garment construction is that
patterns designed for one character cannot easily
be adapted to differently sized characters. One
approach to alleviating this problem would be to
adopt the pattern grading methods used by
pattern makers. However, discussion with
skilled pattern designers reveals that the grading
procedure heavily depends on the specific
design of a garment, and there is no automatic or
systematic way to modify a given pattern design
to fit differently sized bodies.
Fig. 1. Internet shopping [1]
In practice, the grading procedure used in the
fashion industry relies in large part on designers’
experience,
and
therefore
cannot
be
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straightforwardly transferred to a computational
procedure. Another, totally different approach to
pattern generation would be to directly modify
the 3D design of the garment and project the
final result into 2D space to obtain the patterns.
Such an approach should be more intuitive,
given that the ultimate aim is to design a threedimensional garment. However, this approach
has yet to be developed to a practically useful
level. The development of an automatic,
intuitive pattern generation method remains a
research challenge that, when solved, will have a
dramatic impact on the fashion industry as well
as on character animation.
3D IN GARMENT INDUSTRY
The garment is made from 2D patterns of
garment surfaces. The approach to garment
simulation takes its inspiration from the
traditional garment industry, where garments are
created from 2D patterns and then seamed
together. A 3D garment simulator includes the
mechanical model, a collision engine, rendering
and animation. The patterns then need to be
discredited into a triangular mesh. Once the
patterns have been placed around the body, a
mechanical simulation is invoked to make the
patterns come together along the seam lines.
Consequently, the patterns are attached and
seamed, obtaining a shape influenced by the
body shape. The mechanical simulation results
in an animation of the garment on the body,
accounting for the collision response and friction
with the body surface. The final visual look of
the garment is displayed through its material
properties, i.e. colours, shininess and texture,
which are some of the rendering parameters.
Geometrical complexity is another very
important consideration, as the rendering time,
as well as the computation time for the
animation is directly proportional to the number
of polygons to be displayed. Fitting generic
garment animation to personally sized bodies
given a body created from a generic model, the
system modifies the animation of the generic
garment. As described in the previous section,
the program generates bodies from a generic
model using the measurement data from the
scanned body. The same kind of methodology is
applied to garments. A set of generic garments is
attached to each generic body. The generic
garment
animation
sequence
is
then
automatically adapted to the personally sized
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3. body. Intelligent pattern will allow shape
analysis software to be combined with expert
knowledge of traditional pattern cutting. 3D
scanned body shape data will provide an
electronic mannequin for an individual. This will
link to clothing CAD/CAM systems, taking user
style preferences into account, to produce madeto-measure fashion. In each frame of the
garment animation, the vertex position of the
garment is adapted to the skin surface of the
personally sized body. Besides its innovative
approach to many aspects of project
developments (realistic 3D virtual try-on linked
to CAD data, virtual prototyping based on
scanned bodies, body shape analysis and
classification, intelligent pattern alteration and
storage of body data on smartcards), the impact
of the project is expected to derive mainly from
its global approach (technology integration,
standard representations and interoperability).
Fig. 2. Intelligent pattern [5]
The impact is expected to be quite significant
for all segments of the clothing industry and
fashion retailing industry (infrastructures and
standards to support size harmonisation;
innovative, interactive visualisation and product
description technologies to increase customer
confidence in buying clothes online; and
integration of critical steps and data for handling
and fulfilment of orders for made-to-measure
garments).
Fashion in the global market today is big
business. Globalisation continues to be a major
force in developing new fashion strategies. Its
component parts, the design, production and
distribution of fashion merchandise – form the
basis of a highly complex, multibillion-dollar
industry. The fashion business includes all the
processes involved with producing apparel and
the retail stores that sell fashion merchandise to
the public. It is a series of buying supplies,
creating and developing a new product, and
marketing the product. Many important
developments have transformed the fashion
industry dramatically in recent years, including
changes in the economy, globalization,
technology, consumer priorities and spending.
The fashion industry of the new millennium is
one that is quite different from the one that
existed only a decade or two ago. This industry
has become one of the most globalize of all
sectors, with a vast worldwide production and
distribution network that includes almost every
country of the world as a participant in some
way. Today, fashion houses, manufacturers, and
retailers are expanding and diversifying. Those
that don't will not survive easily. Even though
the fashion industry is difficult to break into,
opportunities abound in the industry. The
apparel industry has been vastly restructured
through different shifts in emphases and
activities in the last few decades. In the past,
each brand of the industry announced its new
lines according to the fairly traditional schedule
based on several factors; the change of the
season; the time required to produce goods after
buyers place their orders; and the time required
by product developers (whose titles might have
been fashion director, stylist or creative director)
to assess the pulse of market. Products often
took a year or more to get from the design stage
to the consumer. In the latter part of the 20th
century the textile industry struggled to adjust to
globalization and increased competition from
overseas producers with lower production costs.
In the second half of the 20th century, and
particularly since the 1980s, much of the
manufacturing division of the Europe fashion
and clothing industry has moved overseas [1].
This has been driven by the increasing textiles
industry was manufacturing, with other elements
as peripheral. Now the core of apparel business
is seen as a rise in the importance of design
product
development,
marketing
and
distribution, with manufacturing transformed
into a concern for sourcing production from
overseas suppliers. It is now often the case that
garments produced by European companies will
be designed, marketed and distributed from
within the Europe, but will be manufactured
abroad [2].
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4. GARMENT INDUSTRY IN SERBIA
Fig. 3. The intelligent textile and
garment manufacturing environment [4]
The future for more experienced designers
with larger companies may focus on the design
aspects of this process, with pattern cutters and
machinists contributing to the preparation of
sample garments. In smaller companies, the
designer may do this and other tasks themselves.
Designer's tasks will differ between jobs so his
or hers responsibilities and can include:
• Draw and cut patterns to create sample
garments.
• Select fabric and trimmings.
• Combine basic dressmaking and tailoring
principles with flat pattern work and draping
techniques.
• Supervising the making up of sample garments.
• Fit and modify the finished garment with CAD.
• Arrange showings for press and buyers when
the sample garment line is ready.
• Compare merchandise with those of the
competitors.
• Keep current on trends by reading trade
magazines and attending fashion shows.
•Visit textile showrooms to keep up to date on
latest fabrics.
• Analysing trends in fabrics, colours and shapes,
range planning and development.
• Sourcing, selecting and buying fabrics.
• Adapting existing designs for mass production;
• Liaising closely with sales, buying and
production teams.
• Negotiating with customers and suppliers.
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There are great problems in our fashion
industry as far as market research, following
competition, investment in its own development,
making its own designs, and scientific way of
introducing fashion products on the market are
concerned. Fast changes in technology as well as
customers' expectations make a producer
keeping improving his/her fashion products and
quality in order to keep his/her position on the
market. It is not necessary only to apply the
latest technological achievements in the
production of high quality garments, although
garment production is a very complex process.
The problem that exists in our garment industry
is that we analyze and follow trends that have
already taken place on the fashion scene so while
a collection is being accepted and the preparation
for production is getting completed a new
fashion demand is here, and the old one hasn't
got accustomed yet. Fashion companies that do
not invest in the development of products and
production technology get into danger and can't
"keep place" with fashion trend although they try
hard. [3]
There is no true standardization of sizing in
the fashion industry. What is a size eight to one
designer or clothing manufacturer is not
necessarily a size eight to another. With no
standardization of sizing, each and every
designer has license to create their interpretation
of each size. And it isn't just the size number
itself that affects how clothing will fit you; it is
what the designer is basing their original fit on
that plays an equally important role.
Even more frustrating is when a designer or
retailer uses standard measurements to make
their garments, then translates those numbers
differently when converting to the popular "letter
sizing" - S, M, L, XL, 1X, 2X, 3X - a sizing
concept that has no universal standards.
Generally speaking, more companies usually
use a thinner and leaner fit model for their
standard, and companies who are targeting an
older or more classic customer usually choose a
fit model with a rounder, curvier figure. There
are also plus-sized fit models, petite fit models
and junior sized fit models in the industry.
In Serbia from the 2007 existed new
standards SRPS ISO and SRPS EN for
dimension size clothes, figure 4.
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5. both by quality and prices. Many garment
producers use know-how (available technical
knowledge) and flexibility as well as closeness
of the West-European market. In order to survive
in European fashion industry, existing factories
in Serbia understands problems and they byes
CAD systems and attention with to the following
5 rules:
1. Innovation of products,
Fig. 4. Comparison new (SRPS EN and SRPS ISO)
and old standard in Serbia (JUS)
The coordination of fashion designers'
solution of ideas, possibilities to prepare
construction, objective analysis of technicaltechnological possibilities of firms and
management teams gives a chance to get to the
strategy that will bring expecting placement and
sale of goods on a fashion market for a long time
in merciless completion that exist in fashion
industry. The greatest faults and expense quality
of products grow up in defining clothes, working
out of products and planning technological
process. It is thought the 75 % faults on product
grow up in construction preparation because:
influence atmosphere, the large capacity of work,
understanding sketch of model or understanding
with designer, not realized control of material or
control dimension of patterns and control of all
parts for production clothes. CAD system
(virtual sewing) gives us a quality production
without faults, figure 5.
Fig. 5. Virtual sewing
Working expenses in southeast Europe are
still attractive for European conditions, so efforts
are made in order to satisfy market demands as
well as to accept challenges of Asiatic producers
2. Authenticity
creativity,
of
fashion
designers'
3. Small series,
4. Flexibility and
5. Production of special products (sport
wear, special and protective clothes) and
the use of special markets instead of
standard products supply - industrial
production to measure, garments for
special ages and height.
CONCLUSION
Globalisation continues to be a major force
in the apparel industry and is often the reason for
important developments have dramatically
transformed the fashion industry in recent years.
In the latter part of the 20th century the textile
industry struggled to adjust to globalisation and
lower production costs and much of the
manufacturing division of the Europe fashion
and clothing industry has moved overseas. In the
past, the core part of the fashion and textiles
industry was manufacturing, now the core of
apparel business is seen as a rise in the
importance of design product development,
marketing and distribution. The future of apparel
industry shows towards adding high value,
maintaining high quality production for niche
markets whilst balancing the need for low
value/volume production with effective sourcing
and manufacture abroad. The recruitment of the
suitable specialist in the fashion field and
building a successful creative team has already
became an essential tool for providing
company's success and development.
The CAD system in garment industry enables
to give:
- Material characterisation for simulation
and fabric behaviour.
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6. -
Human body characterisation - simply
digital models of human shape for the
development of standard patterns.
-
Development of a revolutionary design
methodology and tools enabling direct
garment design in 3D which will
automatically be flattened into 2D
patterns.
-
Radical rethinking of the design process.
-
Development of simulation, animation
and design optimisation components for
virtual prototyping.
-
Development cutting and sewing
garments.
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REFERENCE
[1] Euratex, Bulletin 2000/5, The European
Textile/Clothing Industry on the eve of the New
Millennium, Brussels, 2000.
[2] Paunovic, D., Colovic, G., Virtual Technology in
Online Retailing of Made-to-Measure Garment,
Management of technology and innovation, pp
(256-261), FON, Beograd, 2006.
[3] Martinović, M. Colović, G., System PPORF in
garment
industry,
Serbian
Journal
of
Management, 2 (1), pp (73-81), 2007.
[4] Dickerson, K.G., Jarnow, J., Inside the Fashion
Business (7th Edition), Prentice Hall, New Jersey
G.A. Kartsounis 1, N. Magnenat-Thalmann, 2
Hans-Christian Rodrian3, 2002.
[5] E-TAILOR: Integration of 3D Scanners, CAD
and Virtual-Tryon Technologies for Online
Retailing of Made-to-Measure Garment
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