Digital 3D Fashion Designers: Cases of Atacac and The Fabricant

The phenomenon of “digital fashion” has been lately addressed in media as the next significant step in the fashion industry. The increasing use of the 3D-software in fashion design processes is part of a wider “fashion 4.0” digitalization process. This article frames the phenomenon of digital fashion and presents an in-depth case study research on two pioneering companies in this area, Atacac and The Fabricant. How and why are they building their fashion design practice on digital 3D-design? How are these companies redefining the fashion design culture and the fashion designer? Drawing from sociology of professions, this article proposes that digital fashion is an emerging subfield within the field of fashion design, differentiating itself from the professional conventions and building new strategies of jurisdiction and legitimation. Driven by sociotechnical affordances and elevation of professional pride through ethical, conceptual, artistic and skill differentiation, digital fashion designer becomes also a digital artisan. In the increasingly virtual, or “phygital” space and a networked synergetic community of digital fashion, the professional, authorial, bodily and material boundaries of designers become fluid, transforming the traditional figure of fashion designer.