For a global brand like Carhartt WIP, digital transformation is not only about creating 3D assets. It is about connecting people, product data and decisions across teams.
Carhartt Work In Progress, known as Carhartt WIP, adapts and reinterprets the workwear heritage of the American Carhartt brand for a contemporary streetwear audience. Inspired by skate, music subcultures, the brand operates internationally across Europe, Asia and the United States, with design, development, sourcing and production teams working across multiple locations.
As the organization grew, Carhartt WIP needed a more connected way to work. Product information lived in PLM. Design and development teams needed visual collection overviews. 3D assets had to support real product decisions without becoming another disconnected system to maintain.
With Style3D, Carhartt WIP is building a connected workflow that links PLM data, 3D development and digital boards into one collaborative product development environment. At Style3D Innovation Summit in June, Adriana Gochez and Annika Albrecht shared this journey with industry peers, highlighting a practical example of 3D and PLM integration in real product development. The session resonated with attendees looking for tangible digital transformation outcomes.
Carhartt WIP is a global brand with a distributed, international operating model.
The brand’s headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland. Its logistics center is in Weil am Rhein, Germany.. Production is managed through sourcing offices in Hong Kong and Dhaka, with production across 12 countries, including Carhartt WIP’s own facility in Tunisia.
That structure creates a clear need: teams must work from the same information, at the same time, without duplicating work or fragmenting communication.
Before building a more connected digital workflow, product information and development decisions could sit across multiple places: PLM, presentation boards, screenshots, meeting notes, team messages, hand sketches and side conversations. For collection-level decisions, teams needed a way to see the full picture without manually recreating information across systems.
At the same time, Carhartt WIP has a brand identity rooted in physical product, material, wash and an intentionally analog aesthetic. The goal was not to replace that physical experience with 3D. The goal was to use digital tools to enhance development, improve visibility and support better decisions.
Carhartt WIP uses Style3D as a collaborative visual layer connected to its product development workflow.
The workflow is built around a simple principle: PLM remains the source of truth, while Style3D Cloud and StyleBoard make product data, digital assets and collection overviews easier to see, share and use.
The workflow includes:
Since December 2025, Carhartt WIP’s systems have been connected, marking an important step toward a more integrated digital product development environment.
Carhartt WIP’s workflow includes:
Rather than treating 3D as a separate add-on, Carhartt WIP is integrating it into the development environment teams already use. This helps avoid duplicated data entry and keeps digital assets connected to real product information.
With teams distributed across multiple countries and functions, Carhartt WIP needs a more consistent way to collaborate. Style3D Cloud and StyleBoard help teams work from a shared visual environment, supporting clearer communication during collection review and development meetings.
By connecting PLM with Style3D, Carhartt WIP reduces the need to manually copy information into multiple places. Key product data can flow from PLM into the digital workflow, helping teams avoid repeated work and reducing the risk of information being scattered across emails, messages, notes and separate boards.
Carhartt WIP develops four collections a year across men’s, women’s and accessories. StyleBoard helps teams see collection structure, color stories, material stories and cross-merchandising opportunities in one place.
This visibility is especially important when teams need to understand how different styles, categories and materials work together across the collection.
3D assets are now broadly used within Carhartt WIP’s development flow. Design, technical and 3D teams use digital assets to prepare presentations and support decision-making.
Physical prototypes still remain the main part of the process, but now the teams can collaborate globally and make decisions from 3D with a shared visual reference. This enables earlier alignment across design, technical and development teams before moving further into sampling and production.
For Fall-Winter 2027, Carhartt WIP plans for 80% of its collection to be digitalized and represented with digital twins. This marks an important implementation milestone as the brand continues expanding its digital development capabilities.
Today, Carhartt WIP uses 3D mainly for internal visualization and development. Over time, the brand sees opportunities to share 3D files more closely with suppliers.
For Carhartt WIP, the value of 3D is not only photorealistic output. It is workflow clarity.
The brand has a strong analog identity. Materials, washing, texture and physical product experience still matter deeply. That is why Carhartt WIP uses 3D as an enhancement to the development process, not as a replacement for the physical product.
This makes the case especially relevant for global fashion brands that want to adopt 3D without losing their product culture.
By connecting PLM, digital twins and collection boards, Carhartt WIP can use 3D where it creates operational value: aligning teams, supporting decisions, reducing repeated work and making collection information easier to access.
For us, the goal was not just to make daily work easier. It was to make the workflow more efficient, reduce duplicated work and allow teams to work from live data. Connecting PLM with Style3D gives us a stronger foundation for global collaboration.
Adriana Gochez, Digital Project Manager, Carhartt WIP
Carhartt WIP still has a very analog aesthetic, so 3D is not about replacing the physical product experience. It helps us enhance development, bring collection information into one visual place and support better decisions across design, technical and 3D teams.
Annika Albrecht, Team Lead 3D Development & Technical Graphics, Carhartt WIP
Ready to connect product data, 3D assets and visual collection boards across global teams? Carhartt WIP’s journey shows how a more connected digital workflow can help design, technical, sourcing and development teams work from shared information and make collection decisions with greater clarity.
Contact Style3D to explore how digital product development workflows can help your team improve collaboration, reduce duplicated work and make faster product decisions.
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