A designer whose 3D design creations have included costume collaborations for the Black Panther movie, ready-to-wear fashions and other projects will be the featured speaker for the University of California, Davis, Alberini Family Speakers Series in Design in April. 

Julia Koerner, who is at the forefront of 3D printing and sustainable design, will give a presentation titled “Models and Models” on Thursday, April 22, at 4 p.m.  Register here for Koerner’s online presentation.

Koerner collaborated with Ruth E. Carter, costume designer for Black Panther, to create the 3D-printed crown and shoulder piece worn by the character Queen Ramonda, played by Angela Bassett. The movie won a 2019 Academy Award for costume design.

“The costumes of Queen Ramonda were meant to exemplify the combination of traditional African culture and the most high-tech fashion,” Koerner said in an interview with Archinect.com.

Koerner’s online talk will focus on how architects and fashion designers are collaborating to create new looks and construction techniques with 3D printing, while also reducing shipping costs, waste and other environmental impacts. Her artistic endeavors have included architecture, fashion, sculpture and product design.

“3D-printing designs in the costume world is such a great opportunity because there are no limitations on the form and geometries,” she said in an interview with DeZeen magazine.

Based in Los Angeles and Salzburg, Austria, Koerner teaches at the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design and is founder of JK Design GmbH. Her designs have been featured in National Geographic Magazine, VICE, WIRED and The New York Times, and exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Museum of Applied Arts MAK Vienna and the Ars Electronica Center. Visit Koerner's website.

She launched an entirely printed ready-to-wear collection. One of her jackets features an intricate network of multicolored 3D-printed bristles that mimic the hairlike structures on a butterfly wing. Another collection is made up of a set of 38 components that can be combined in various configurations to form different garments.

The lecture series is organized and presented by the UC Davis College of Letters and Science’s Department of Design, the only comprehensive design program in the UC system.

“All of the Alberini series speakers have been uniquely different, but they are all at the cutting edge of design,”  Professor of Design Susan Taber Avila said. “Her ability and practice working with designers in architecture, product and fashion is a good fit with our program, as design disciplines are becoming increasingly more interdisciplinary and this is also the direction of our department.”

The Alberini Family Speakers Series in Design, supported through an endowment by the Carlos and Andrea Alberini Family Foundation, brings to campus renowned innovators and thinkers in design to inspire students and encourage community engagement and learning.