Are you a fashion designer who assembles garments for all different shapes and sizes? Do you have a huge interest in the technological advancements in the fashion industry? Do you just want to learn about something cool? Get ready to ooh and aah at Euveka’s shape-shifting robotic mannequin.
Euveka is a French start-up specializing in robotic technologies related to morphology and biomimicry. Their latest mannequin uses design software in order to help fashion designers produce styles ranging from ready-to-wear to haute couture.
How it works:
To keep things simple, a program called Mimeo is used on a PC or Mac and allows its users to input measurements in Excel. The mannequin then forms its bodice into the correct sizing. As of right now, the mannequin can only go from size 36 to 46 in European sizing, but that is a pretty good range to start off with. The bust of the mannequin is silicon and can also be adjusted to fit realistic body types and expectations.
The shape-shifting mannequin is still in its early stages, so don’t expect to be seeing it everywhere any time soon. It seems to be a step in the right direction for eager designers. The simplicity of the design software is able to provide both ease and accuracy in terms of measurements. This will make it a lot easier for designers to quickly measure their garments and design custom made orders. This is especially useful for big names in the industry such as the designers on “Project Runway.” A lot of times the designers get a new model every week with a different body type. They have to take down their measurements and make sure they aren’t sewing their garments too tight or too loose. Using a single-sized mannequin makes it harder to provide a look at what the finished product is supposed to look like and how it should fit. By allowing the designers to use the shape-shifting mannequin, it could knock off a lot of time in the workroom wasted on reworking the garments to perfectly fit their model for the week.
Here’s a video to see exactly how the process works!