Design, Development and Production have largely relied on the same, often manual, methods despite all the technological advances happening in the world outside of fashion and apparel. Ten years ago, academic research (by contrast to the existing 3D virtual software solutions) posited about clothing companies complaints' on the lack of effective garment-oriented CAD packages to design directly in 3D and provide the model list with tools for shape modelling and cloth behaviour simulation. Although, common place in other sectors, 3D virtual prototyping in the apparel industry has been slow and complex. A qualitative research investigating the level of the technology implementation in the early adopters, the vision of the big corporations, entrepreneurs and professional users for the global clothing and fashion industry as well as the challenges, opportunities and barriers that need to be overcome in order for digital prototype to accelerate business processes on an integrated basis.

The research was set out to explore the effective integration of Digital Prototype in the product development process of the TCF industry, investigating the level of implementation of new digital technologies and especially 3D visualisation and virtualisation of a garment product comparing the enthusiasm, vision, scepticism, evangelism and restrained optimism between technology providers-vendors, entrepreneurs-independents, professional & experienced users and academicsresearchers of clothing/fashion courses. A combination of primary and secondary sources was used. First hand interviews to investigate the level of technology implementation in the early adopters, the vision of the big corporations, entrepreneurs and professional users as well as the involvement of academics. Analysis of the collected primary and secondary data showed that on the one hand the traditional process of sample making has not changed but on the other hand fashion companies although using it, are facing many problems: time spent in developing and approving samples, lack of standardization of software solutions, and willingness to adopt new technology are some of them. It has been found that there has been a lack of research in the new dimensioned digital prototype of clothing at the product development level in a qualitative manner and from a perspective not so engineered-focused. Technology is revolutionary and overturning traditional processes. Therefore, the analysis of the effective integration of Digital Prototype in the product development process of the TCF industry is a key original factor of this paper.

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