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Consumers who can’t afford to pay a premium for tailored goods can spend hours upon hours in high street stores trying to find clothes that match their frame. Now Fabrican — a technology that sprays fabric directly onto the wearer’s body — could soon help users create their own perfectly-fitted clothes.

Developed by Spanish designer Manel Torres, the spray is made up of short fibers mixed with a solvent and polymers that bind the material together. The fabric can be sprayed directly onto the skin and the thickness of the garment is decided by how many layers are sprayed. The cans come in a variety of colors and materials, enabling consumers to create their own patterns and designs. When the material has fully dried, it can be carefully removed from the wearer, trimmed to shape and then worn again just as any other garment can. It can even be washed before reuse. Although Torres has been working on perfecting the design since patenting it while a student in 2000, he has recently launched a commercial company — Fabrican Ltd — alongside Imperial College London, which could signal that spray-on clothing may be a real product sooner rather than later.

Fabrican can help both designers and consumers create instant, spontaneous pieces of fashion that are tailored to the body it’s sprayed onto. According to the company, it also has applications in medical settings — for dressings and casts that need to be placed onto sensitive areas, for example. How else can consumers have a bigger say in the design of the clothes they wear?

Spotted by Smith Alan, written by Springwise