Max Salzborn
Jesse: Did you have formal training as a fashion designer? How did you get started creating digital fashion? What drew you to it?
Max Salzborn: I studied visual communication at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and took the odd fabric and fashion course there, but it was never my main interest. My digital fashion career started years later with sketches I made for a sweater because I wanted to create salty merch.
After that, I had the idea to render the whole thing as a small commercial, and since then I can't keep the virtual sketchpad and the digital cloth program closed. I'm always amazed at how beautifully the virtual fabric falls and that the conception is probably different than a real cut, but there is also a miracle in this creative process that challenges and inspires me again and again.
J: What’s the relationship between digital and physical fashion? What is unique about digital fashion?
MS: In my eyes, real and digital fashion are conditional on each other. A positive coexistence. Of course there are exceptions, but on the whole there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and if we take the best of both sides, we can only win. The biggest advantage of digital fashion, for me personally, is the quick design. Within minutes you can create rough 3D sketches and guess if the cut will work.
In real fashion, it goes one step further in that you can generate and cut the fashion completely on the PC. No waste, no flights for crew, camera and models, and the highest degree of customizability for the end user in seconds. Of course, the whole thing is still in its infancy, but the prospects in the near future are really great! For producers as well as consumers.
“Fashion is for everyone, you do not have to make them from scratch but design them with prints or patterns. There are many ways to be part of the movement.”
J: Has designing digital fashion impacted the type of clothes you wear (or wish you could wear) in the physical world?
MS: Totally! I try to combine more things and express myself, as well as in my work. Since I am a sociable, relaxed type, I do not wear anything with a tight belt or too tight things. I have learned this through my work. Just walk around like you feel comfortable, because that's the most important thing. IRL, I run around in muted colors without many patterns as I need an orderly chaos to work in.
J:What tools or technologies have enabled you to create photorealistic clothes?
MS: For my fashion I use Clo3D, which is great. I use it to create and animate my pieces and texture and render them in Cinema4D with Redshift. Of course I also use homemade textures with Substance or download fabrics from the Substance Library.
J: What’s the opportunity with digital fashion for 3D artists and designers who don’t have a background in fashion?
MS: Fashion is for everyone, you do not have to make them from scratch, but design them with prints or patterns. There are many ways to be part of the movement, openness and a great interest in new things is the most important for me. In the end everything can be art or fashion—only the how, where and who is the decisive factor.
