Francis Bitonti is one of the pioneers of using 3D printing technology in order to innovate and amaze the fashion industry. The New York City-based fashion designer has collaborated to create amazing 3D printed fashion accessories such as the Mutatio 3D printed shoe (made with United Nude and 3D Systems) and a 3D printed gown (made with Shapeways for model Dita Von Teese).
Bitonti is now at it again, this time with a newly designed digital jewelry collection in collaboration with the London-base accessories brand WonderLuk, a well-known digital jewelry designer and manufacturer founded in 2013. WonderLuk would prove to be a perfect match for the highly-esteemed designer, seeing as they share the similar goal of using 3D printing and digital fabrication as tools to disrupt the way we look and create fashion.
“This collaboration came from a shared desire to revolutionize the way people interact with products they love and want to wear,” says Robert Lucca, the co-founder of WonderLuk. “Anyone can now join the process of creation from the product’s inception. Fashion can not be more individual than this.”
Each piece of the collection was individually created with a complex algorithm that digitally manifests as a personalized jewelry piece. Not one of these pieces are the same as any other, while Bitonti and WonderLuk have made it a point to only 3D print each design once. The fashion designer utilizes artificial intelligence to shape wondrous jewelry on its own accord, ensuring uniqueness and a fluid design. Each 3D printed piece in the limited collection is then hand-finished by professional jewelers and shipped off to one individual, who will possess the only model in the entire world!
The collection includes a bracelet cuff, ring, pendent, and earrings and the prices range from $259 to $565. The algorithmic design creates only 30 different forms of each type of jewelry. The collection can be found at the WonderLuk online store, with each piece on display for the customer to browse. “My collection for WonderLuk is the perfect example how technology can generate objects of beauty that fashionable women actually want to wear,” Bitonti explains. “We’re entering a new era of design and manufacturing and it takes visionary brands to take fashion to the next level.”
Bitonti’s latest use of 3D printing technology, combined with artificially intelligent design, showcases once again how digital design and additive manufacturing can produce fashion innovations that would be near impossible to replicate by hand. And he’s collaborating with progressive companies and advanced manufacturing techniques to do so, resulting in never-before-seen fashion statements. No one (except maybe Bitonti) knows what this modern day designer will conjure up next.
