Custom Meow Collection - Dall-E, Photoshop, VStitcher

Our little friends gave us so much comfort, especially during difficult times. This project honors their love and friendship.

This year, for my fashion brand, Art by Physicist, I launched another Kickstarter which was funded in October 2022. The collection is called, Meow, which consists of a variety of home goods (table clothes, napkins, bedsheets, etc.) with backers' cats printed on the fabrics and a convertible dress custom made to each person's body measurements. The main cat on the dress is my friend's, Judy Wang's, painting of her cat, Miao Miao. After the Kickstarter, they are now available on my brand's website from which you can make custom orders.

I've gotten increasingly busy and only had time to make one collection this past year. I started this project in December 2021 and only had time to work on it during the weekend. But it had been a wonderful meditation for me. Here, I'm documenting the process from design and production. I used a lot of the latest technologies including 3D simulation and artificial intelligence (for example Dall-E and Photoshop's neutral filter) for visualization and prototyping, which helped to make the process streamlined and waste-less. These allowed me to customize the orders of home goods and dress for each backer. I also used style transfer to swap the cat on the main painting.

I hope the tools and process I used could be useful for you.

1. Pattern digitization

If you sew, you probably have lots of paper patterns lying around at home. They come in a set of graded sizes. You have to transfer the patterns from paper, for each size, one by one. That's a tedious process.

So the first step I did was to digitize paper patterns that are similar to what I wanted to design, so that I could modify them easily to different shapes and sizes digitally. I took photos of some paper patterns, with the cutting mat next to them, which functioned as a scale and perspective reference. These paper patterns are basic styles that can work as templates.

Next is to import the photos into a vector program. I used to use Adobe Illustrator to trace out the patterns digitally but now I have direct patterning software, VStitcher, to do the 2D patterning and 3D simulation together. Here's how it looks like.

VStitcher is very intuitive. You can drag and drop the patterns to their corresponding locations on the body so the pattern pieces are placed on the correct area on the avatar before stitching. There are lots of tutorials online for the software.

2. Digital artwork and materials

In the previous video, you already see some artwork added. The VStitcher program was convenient for importing custom prints to the patterns. It also allows one to select materials similar to the real materials one would use for the design and let the user pick modify the material physics. I already decided to use velvet for the actual dress. I use Spoonflower as one of my material suppliers. On their website, they list material properties which I input in VStitcher's materials physics setting. This way the 3D simulation can be as close to real fabric draping as possible.

When I started with the artwork, I only had Judy's Miao Miao painting. So I needed to fill out the patterns with art. I exported the patterns from VStitcher in PDF, opened them in Illustrator to grab the outlines of the patterns and pasted them into Photoshop. Then I hand-painted the patterns in Photoshop.

I also design a repeat in Photoshop using the cats people sent to me. This is used in the home goods and the background of the dress.

I made a sample for myself first so that I could model it and do the Kickstarter.

3. Customize your own avatar

Now I'm designing for different people. We all have different body shapes and there's no standard human bodies. Legacy set sizing just doesn't fit all kinds of body shapes. To be the most inclusive, we should fit the patterns to different people, instead of forcing people to fit to fixed sizes. So at Art by Physicist, I started letting people give me their measurements, from which I can create their unique avatars in the 3D simulation.

Watch the many steps to construct custom avatars and adjust the pattern pieces based on the measurements from the base size. Some of the artwork steps had to be redone because the pattern sizes and shapes are different from before.

There are heat maps to show how tight the cloth is on the avatar, which guides the user to modify the size of the patterns until the fit is good. Another trick to note is that we need to minimum waste fabrics as much as possible. I combined orders from different backers into the same rectangular fabric size so that the used areas a maximized. This is also one of the reasons factories prefer batch orders and requires designers to have a minimum order quantity. But I believe future factories need to have a more efficient and automated way to do on-demand so that they could do mass customization - making something only after people buy them. These pieces of software I use, for example, were so helpful for lean manufacturing and the digital process definitely help Art by Physicist reduce any unnecessary waste in time and materials.

4. Custom print the fabrics

The final step (before sewing) is to get the custom design of the cats printed on the fabrics. I used Spoonflower fabric-printing service.

The concept and process were described in Make: Volume 82.

5. More experiments

When I design a new collection, I often experiment with some new crazy ideas that are a bit difficult to productize.

I was obsessed with two types of sleeves (inspired by Tomoko Nakamichi's Pattern Magic 2). I couldn't decide which one to do for the final design. So I started a poll among Art by Physicist's subscribers to let them vote. But the final result was so similar, I made the dress convertible so one could switch whichever sleeves they want.

I also made a bomber jacket that didn't end up in my production because it was very complicated to make. Here's some photos for appreciation. It is also very warm. I also attach the patterns in the schematics so you can make your own.

During the Kickstarter campaign, I offered a few other customized accessories in addition to the home goods, including laser-engraved coasters.

I used an all-in-one robotic arm that was converted from a 3D printer to a laser engraver.

More ways to wear!

Production-on-demand is the most sustainable way for a fashion brand to do creative work. Once again, I thank Art by Physicist's backers for making the Meow Collection a reality. If you like the collection or want to support Art by Physicist's original art and design, make an order here.