>_ The Visual Proof / Screen × Pattern × Factory × World.

One prototype. No second sample round.

Aesthetic Certainty, in practice. This is the MF70 anti-surveillance suit. The jacket on the left was approved in 3D. The jacket on the right is the only prototype we made. It became the salesman sample.

MF70 jacket in CLO 3D, dazzle print, front view on black — > Screen. CLO 3D, July 20223D

The single MF70 prototype hanging in the factory — > Floor. The only prototype, August 2022Physical

>_ Case: MF70 Anti-Surveillance Suit

> 2022 · MetaFactory × [a]industri > TSOM role: concept, design lead, pattern, 3D engineering, digital prototype > Base: Swiss Army M70 field jacket, 1970s

A few of us met in Amsterdam and asked one question: what if every maker behind a garment was visible? A factory, a print designer, a print house, metaverse builders and a DAO, all working in the open from one pattern file. If that file drifted, everything after it drifted too.

May: digital pattern >_ July: digital prototype final >_ September: launch at MCON2, Denver >_ Oct–Nov: presale, printing, production >_ December: shipping

Stage 1: Compass Lock | Innovation & Vision

>_ Why the M70

The Swiss M70 is a design classic hiding in plain sight. Massimo Osti used it for Stone Island in 1986, then mixed it with a gas mask to create the Goggle Jacket in 1988. Hussein Chalayan, Christopher Raeburn and others have gone back to it since. Over 11 pockets, each one engineered separately. Commercially, that’s crazy. As a lesson in construction, it’s perfect.

>_ Open Research

We built the brief in the open, on one Miro board, with people in Berlin, Gothenburg and the UK. Adversarial patches, papers on machine vision, street tests, print tests. One note on the board set the tone early: a working anti-surveillance pattern might fail completely. In the best case, it makes you less detectable.

The MF70 Miro research board, read left to right, from camo references to adversarial research to street mockups and recognition tests — > Miro board. Read left to right: references, research, mockups, testsResearch

Stage 2: Prototype Rigor | Stage 3: Source of Truth

>_ Wear it. Then take it apart.

When we get an old garment, we wear it first. That’s how we learn where the pockets sit, how they’re used and how it really fits. This one is vintage and runs small: a medium-large wears like a small-medium. Then we took it apart, photographed every piece and rebuilt it 1:1 in CLO 3D.

> Outcome
a 1:1 digital master of the original, graded and open.

> What we removed
guessing the pattern from photos.

The original M70 jacket in the centre, surrounded by every one of its deconstructed camo pattern pieces — > Deconstructed. The original jacket and every piece it’s made fromPhysical

Hugh wearing the original Swiss M70 suit in Alpine camo on a street — > Worn. The original M70Physical

The M70 jacket in 3D above all of its pattern pieces laid flat — > Rebuilt. 1:1 in CLO 3D3D

3D M70 jacket with each pocket group colour-coded — > Pocket logic. Each pocket engineered alone3D

> Turntable. The rebuilt pant, 360°Video

Flat 3D pattern pieces of the M70 jacket and pant — > Flat. Every piece, simulated3D

CLO 3D workflow with the dazzle print placed on the 2D pattern and 3D suit — > Print on pattern. 2D and 3D in one file3D

The full pattern is free on openpattern.io, under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

>_ Test it before you cut it

The brief was a suit that confuses the AI cameras that are everywhere today. We put our first mockups through Amazon Rekognition. It still found a person. So the print went back for another round, on screen, before any fabric was printed. Daniel Mohr’s final print stacks three ingredients:

01
Dazzle
Black-and-white base to break the silhouette.
02
Pixel
A coloured pixel layer on top to confuse the cameras.
03
Reflective
Heat-transfer branding, added after printing.

It fools some systems, not all. It also flips camouflage around: in the real world, you can’t be missed.

> Outcome
the print was fixed on screen, not in fabric.

> What we removed
a wasted print run.

> In public. The original M70, filmed for the testVideo

Mockup of the dazzle suit on a street — > Mockup. Dazzle print in contextTest

Amazon Rekognition test screenshot of the suit mockup — > Machine vision. Rekognition test, May 2022Test

Final dazzle and pixel print artwork — > Final print. Daniel MohrArtwork

>_ Screen vs. Floor

The original was heavy cotton, too heavy for today. We moved to a lighter hemp slub, digitally printed with water-based ink by House of U. Digital print has no minimums: you print only what you need. The sample maker needed 11 hours to build it. We made it once.

> Outcome
one physical sample, used as the salesman sample.

> What we removed
sample rounds two, three and four.

> Screen. Full suit, 3D3D

MF70 prototype worn in the factory — > Floor. The prototype, wornPhysical

Printed panels being assembled into the prototype — > Making. 11 hours, one samplePhysical

> Fabric. 76% organic cotton, 24% hemp, 160 g/m²Video

Stage 4: Pre-Sales & Revenue | Visual Persuasion

>_ Launch

We skipped fashion week and launched at MCON2, a small Web3 developer conference in Denver, September 2022. The sample started on a 360 turntable. By the first party, it was on people’s bodies. Buyers pre-ordered, and their receipt was a HaLo NFC chip on a keychain, holding the patterns, the NFT and the avatar. No plastic bags: we shipped in a storage bag based on an old military wash bag.

> Outcome
sold on presale before production started.

> What we removed
speculative inventory and plastic packaging.

Attendee wearing the MF70 jacket at the MCON2 launch — > MCON2. Denver, September 2022Launch

HaLo NFC chip keychain clipped to the MF70 jacket — > Receipt. HaLo chip by KONGDigi-physical

Storage and transport bag in the MF70 geometric print, based on a military wash bag — > Shipping. Transport bag, no plasticPhysical

>_ One master model. Every output.

Once the pattern is digital, it goes anywhere: a game, a virtual world, a campaign. No remodelling. No reshoot. Because the pattern was open, five artists remixed MF70 into their own versions.

> Outcome
one master model in games, virtual worlds, AR and campaign.

> What we removed
remodelling and reshoots.