Cooper Hewitt says...
Born in 1983 and raised in East Moriches, New York, designer Francis Bitonti’s work is infused with technological and materials-based innovation. After receiving a BFA from Long Island University, Bitonti earned his Master of Architecture from Pratt University in 2007. After completing his studies, he began collaborating with New York fashion designer Katie Gallagher, creating a series of laser-cut cowhide belts with 3D-printed stainless steel fasteners. Bitonti founded his eponymous studio in 2007 after becoming a finalist in the CityRacks Design Competition, a bike rack design competition sponsored by the New York City Department of Transportation, Google and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. During this time Bitonti was skeptical about the sustainability of 3D printing, a process whose great potential is often hindered by inaccessibly high production costs. He persisted, though, and in 2013 garnered a great deal of acclaim for a 3D-printed nylon dress for the burlesque performer Dita Von Teese, co-designed with Michael Schmidt. The Fibonacci sequence-inspired pattern was constructed of 3,000 moving joints and was an important instance of the integration of technology and fashion in the new millennium. Bitonti has continued to experiment with new processes and production techniques, unveiling his Cloud Collection in 2014, a product line produced entirely by cloud manufacturing, and in 2015 released both the Fiber table, the first functional example of 3D-printed metal furniture and his Mutatio shoe collection, a collaboration with United Nude. Each pair of Mutatio shoes is slightly different, combining leather uppers with lattice platform heels made using a selective laser sinter machine and then plated with gold. Since 2013, Bitonti has lead New Skin Workshops, ten-day classes geared toward the use of computer-based design for fashion. His Align scoliosis brace for UNYQ (2016) pushes the relationship between technology and fashion even further, integrating both into a highly customizable medical device that embraces tech in high design to erode the stigma of corrective back braces.
