Janis Sne: “3D Will Bridge the Gap”
Janis Sne was working at a fashion studio in Amsterdam when he first was introduced to 3D software by his colleague Clement Balavoine. He was so blown away that he left his job as a fashion designer to go full-time 3D. The studio both of them started now works with fashion brands all over the world. Janis work for e.g. Nike’s all conditions gear, ACG brings your mind to both the past and the future with clear influences from military gear and video games.
What triggered you as a fashion designer to start working with virtual garment design?
– Honestly, by being a fashion student, I started to feel very uncomfortable with all the waste I was generating from my experiments and school works. Later on, working for other design studios, the problem did not went away since all brands work in a similar approach to fashion (prototyping, manufacturing etc.). I am very aware that the fashion industry is in the top 3 of pouting the earth. Since I don’t like to follow the crowd, I started to look for a new ways of product development and design processes that are more sustainable.This is where 3D grabbed my with it’s technological advantages. I started to experiment with 3D-softwares and I never look back to traditional design process.It is great to see, that the major brands are shifting into this direction! Although, in a super slow speed…
Can you, in short, describe your workflows and the tools and software you currently work with?
– I am currently using Clo3D for my garment creation. For sculpting and footwear I use Zbrush. Finally, for rendering my favorite software is Keyshot 8.2. Since I have a great previous experience in technical garments development and I know each step of the manufacturing processes – it is much easier to apply all the principles in 3D-software’s. For me, it is very very similar to real life design and creation process.
Where is the biggest demand for 3d visualization in fashion as it looks now and how will It look a few years away do you think?
– Currently, 3D is used mostly in visual promotion creation for social media. Just like advertising have been operating for the last years! But slowly brands start to realize, that 3D can become part of retail and lead in house design and development operations. It is easy actually – in the next years, all brands will use 3D for multiple purposes as an industry standard. First – practical product development. This includes concept ideas, garment file library build up, graphic identity experiments, etc. Second – using all the 3D assets mentioned before ,to generate promotion materials for customers / social media. Third – I believe 3D technology will blend the gap between fashion and the entertainment industries.
You describe your work with fashion and 3d to build a more sustainable future for the fashion industry. In what ways does 3d technology build that future?
– Every personal project I created has one goal – to push the design process into much more exciting and unknown areas… With that said, sustainability is the second most important aspect! In the past 10 years, human kind has produced more plastic than the entire 20th century. I believe that a great design is a measure of our progress – therefore I feel that it is my responsibility to embrace sustainability as important direction of inspiration.
The current technology and 3D-software possibilities are truly changing the way how we interact, design and manufacture products. On of the solutions is : The starting point is the recycling of plastic. After, all the plastics are turned into textiles and assets for 3D-printers. In a combination with the 3D-softwares, these assets are used for further product development and design prototyping. This results in a product with a purpose – Nothing more and nothing less than you need!
What would your dream work brief be in 2019?
– I am already living my dream with doing what I love! I always wanted to do, what I am doing now…. 🙂 )
What’s the most inspiring piece of work you’ve seen lately?
– Love,Death & Robots series on Netflix, Alita-The batle angel movie (must watch in 3D I MAX cinema because of vfx) and the Westworld series on HBO. Amazing pieces of art!
Also read:
“What can fashion learn from character customization”
“Joseph Cross pushes the magic border between fashion and fiction”