The Universal Studios Costume Department has announced the grand opening of its latest innovative service, the Digital Design Workroom. In a 3D virtual environment, Workroom staff can create a designer’s garment using talent measurements, fabric type and color, and overall fit. The Digital Design Workroom technology saves time in design, approval, and manufacturing while reducing fabric waste by creating more accurate patterns.
“The Workroom is very flexible. Designers can bring in photos and sketches or even actual garments to replicate,” said Poppy Cannon-Reese, director of Costume at Universal Studios. “The Digital Design Workroom staff provides hands-on client support from concept to printed pattern to manufacturing.”
Designers can provide the Workroom staff with objects such as fabric samples, buttons, buckles, straps, and zippers to see life-like attributes and behaviors for their desired garment. Print placement for fabrics, stitching, and logos can also be displayed in the system. The software simulates draping, accounting for fabric weight and texture, and allows for multiple iterations on customized avatars. Images and videos of the designs can be shared for approvals via email, enabling a quicker turnaround. Once approved, the design is converted into a pattern that is printed on site. Designers can take the pattern with them, or have Universal Costume finish with sewing and alterations.
Universal Studios Costume Department is a unit of NBCUniversal, a leading media and entertainment company in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, world-renowned theme parks, and a suite of leading Internet-based businesses. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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