Julia Koerner explains how she uses technology to apply architectural techniques to fashion and costume design in the first video of our Design for Life collaboration with Dassault Systèmes.
Koerner is the first designer to feature in a series of six videos as part of Design for Life, a new content collaboration between Dezeen and Dassault Systèmes that highlights designers who are using technology and research to build a better world.
Julia Koerner designed Queen Ramonda's costumes for the 2018 film Black Panther. Photo copyright Disney
The Austrian designer, who is based between Los Angeles, USA and Salzburg in her home country, uses generative design tools and 3D-printing technology to work across a field of disciplines including architecture, fashion and product design. She is the founder of her own practice, JK Design, and holds a teaching role at UCLA's Architecture and Urban Design department.
Koerner's Black Panther costumes featured fine structural details achieved through 3D-printing
Koerner combined cutting-edge technology and traditional influences when collaborating with Hollywood costume designer Ruth E Carter to create Queen Ramonda's costumes in the 2018 film Black Panther, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

3D-printing enabled Koerner to realise the detailed filigree structures of Queen Ramonda's crown and shoulder mantle, designed to convey the technological advancement of the fictional nation of Wakanda while referencing patterns...