Designer Releases First Ever Collection of Metal 3D Printed Purses at Milan Fashion Week

In 3D printing “first times” are at the order of the day. During the final days of Milan Fashion Week, Italian designer Giulia Ber Tacchini released the first ever collection of metal 3D printed purses at a Fashion Show held at Nerino8, in the center of Milan. The purses are parte of Giulia’s Maissa collection and are already commercially available with prices reaching up to €1,200: not exactly for everyone but neither an impossible price for a designer item.

The Maissa collection includes both purses that are entirely 3D printed in an elegant copper wireframe, and others that integrate metal 3D printed decorations on a traditionally manufactured product. All 3D printing is done in copper by laser powder bed fusion (SLM) technology and all designs were created in Grasshopper.

Giulia, whom you can see wearing the black shirt and gold collier in the photo above, discovered 3D printing a couple of years ago (she told me she found my book very helpful in understanding the possibilities wit this technology, which of course makes me feel quite proud) and was completely captured by this new way of making things. She immediately set out to find applications in the fashion industry and, working with a Bologna based 3D printing service, she produced what can be easily considered the largest commercial metal 3D printed products ever made.

Each of the fully 3D printed metal pochette is able to hold an iPhone 6 and yet ultra light thanks to the generatively defined shape optimization. The partially 3D printed purses also clearly stand out and not just because of the beautiful models wearing them around the courtyard.

Only a few months ago, at Milan Design Week, we had brought a metal 3D printer from Sisma to show that the first commercial metal 3D printed products are not that fare away, wishin our Methesis event, organized in collaboration with Sisma, Autodesk and Lenovo. Now a new and even bigger metal 3D printed application is making its way into the runaways. Something tells me it’s not going to end here.