Keeping up with the ever-changing trends in the fashion industry can be difficult. What’s perfect in one moment is often out of style the next season, potentially requiring a wardrobe re-evaluation.
However, maintaining the latest fashion styles can be wasteful and expensive. Approximately 92 million tonnes of textile waste is generated each year, including clothing that is thrown away because it is outdated or no longer fits. But what if you could easily rearrange your clothes to suit trends and body shape changes to create the outfit you like?
A team of researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Adobe are trying to make clothing more environmentally friendly and versatile. The company’s new ‘Refashion’ software system breaks fashion design into modules (essentially smaller building blocks) by allowing users to draw, plan and visualize each element of a garment. This tool turns fashion ideas into blueprints that outline how to assemble each component to create a reconfigurable garment, such as pants that can transform into a dress.
Refashion allows users to create an outline for an adaptable fashion piece by simply drawing and placing shapes. This is a visual diagram showing how to cut a garment, providing an easy way to design things like shirts with attachable hoods for rainy days. You can also create skirts that can be reconfigured into dresses for formal dinners or maternity wear suitable for different stages of pregnancy.
“We wanted to create a garment with reuse in mind from the beginning,” says Rebecca Lin, a doctoral student in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), researcher at CSAIL and the Media Lab, and lead author of the paper introducing the project. “Most clothing we buy today is static and thrown away when it’s no longer needed. At Refashion, we make the most of it by helping people design items that can be easily resized, repaired, or restyled into different outfits.”
latest module
The researchers conducted a preliminary user study that allowed both designers and novices to explore Refashion and create garment prototypes. Participants assembled pieces, often within 30 minutes, including asymmetrical tops that could be extended into jumpsuits or remade into formal dresses. These results suggest that Refashion has the potential to make garment prototyping more approachable and efficient. But what features contribute to this ease of use?
Its interface initially displays a simple grid in “pattern editor” mode, allowing users to connect dots to draw the borders of clothing items. You basically draw a rectangular panel and specify how the various modules connect to each other.
Users can customize the shape of each component, create linear designs for clothing (which can be useful for items that don’t fit tightly like chinos), or play around with one of Refashion’s templates. Users can edit pre-designed blueprints for T-shirts, fitted blouses, pants, and more.
Another, more creative approach is to modify the design of individual modules. First, you can choose the “pleat” feature, which folds the garment like an accordion. It’s a useful way to design things like maxi dresses. The “gathered” option adds an artistic flourish, crumpling the garment to create puffy skirts and sleeves. Users can also use the “darts” module, which removes triangular pieces from the fabric. This allows you to shape the waist of the garment (for example, a pencil skirt) or adjust it to the upper body (for example, a fitted shirt).
While it may seem like each of these components needs to be sewn together, Refashion gives users a more flexible and efficient means of connecting garments. Edges can be sewn together via double-sided connectors such as metal snaps (like the buttons used to close denim jackets) or Velcro dots. Users can also secure it with pins called brads. This pin has a pointed side that protrudes through a hole and splits into two “legs” that attach to different surfaces. This is a convenient way to pin photos to poster board, for example. Both connection methods allow for easy reconfiguration of the module if it becomes damaged or requires a new look during a “fit check.”
When a user designs a garment, the system automatically creates a simplified diagram showing how it will be assembled. The pattern is divided into numbered blocks that you drag to different parts of the 2D mannequin to specify the position of each component. Users can simulate how sustainable clothing would look on 3D models of different body types (and can also upload models).
Finally, the digital blueprint for sustainable clothing can be expanded, shortened, and combined with other items. Thanks to refashioning, new items can symbolize potential changes in fashion. Instead of buying new clothes every time you want a new one, you can simply reconfigure the ones you already have. Yesterday’s scarf could be today’s hat, and today’s T-shirt could be tomorrow’s jacket.
“Rebecca’s research is at the exciting intersection between computation and art, craft, and design,” says Eric Demain, an MIT EECS professor and CSAIL principal investigator who advises Lin. “We’re excited to see how Refashion can provide custom fashion designs to wearers while making clothing more reusable and sustainable.”
constant change
While Refashion offers a greener vision for the future of fashion, the researchers note that they are actively improving the system. They plan to revise the interface to support more durable items beyond standard prototyping fabrics. Refashion may soon support other modules as well, such as curved panels. The CSAIL-Adobe team may also evaluate whether their system can use as little material as possible to minimize waste, and whether it can help “remix” old store-bought costumes.
Lin also plans to develop new computational tools that will allow designers to use color and texture to create unique, personalized costumes. She explores ways to design clothing through patchwork. It’s basically cutting small pieces from materials like decorative fabrics, recycled denim, or crochet blocks, and assembling them to make larger items.
“This is a great example of how computer-aided design can be key in supporting more sustainable practices in the fashion industry,” says Adrian Bousseau, a senior researcher at the Inria Center at the University of the Côte d’Azur, who was not involved in the paper. “By driving garment modification from the ground up, they have developed novel design interfaces and accompanying optimization algorithms that help designers create garments that can have a longer lifespan through reconfiguration. Sustainability often imposes additional constraints on industrial production, but I believe research like the one by Lin and her colleagues will empower designers to innovate despite these constraints.”
Lin co-authored the paper with Adobe Research scientist Michal Lukáč and the paper’s senior author, former CSAIL postdoc Mackenzie Leake. Their research was supported in part by the MIT Morningside Academy for Design, the MIT MAKE Design-2-Making Mini-Grant, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The researchers recently presented their findings at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.
