Fashion’s interest in alternative fabrics keeps growing
Hig h-end fashion and sportswear brands are taking a growing interest in recycled and alternative fabrics made from unusual materials like mushrooms, oranges and even proteins inspired by spider-web DNA—but not just out of concern for the environment. They are recognizing that these cool materials of tomorrow could be something people want to buy today.
Over the next 12 months, brands are expected to announce partnerships with businesses that have figured out ways to make leather without cows, silk without worms, fur without animals and fabrics from recycled waste. Already this year, Salvatore Fer rag a mo has been selling scarves made of orange fibers while Stella McCartney produced two out fits made with the spider-inspired silk.
McCartney, a vegan designer who was a relatively lone fashion voice in the field of sustainable fabrics until recent years, provided a golden dress of the laboratory-made silk for the Museum of Modern Art’ s exhibition “Item: Is Fashion Modern?” She also presented a chocolate-brown bodysuit and trousers back stage at her spring 2018 show last month during Paris Fashion Week.
“They have not completely perfected it but it is a silk; it is literally a silk but it is a slightly different texture than the silk we normally use ,” said Claire Ber gk amp, head of sustainability and ethical trade at the Stella McCartney brand, adding that it had not finished testing the fiber for all of its possible applications. She said the brand, which has signed along-term partnership agreement with Bolt Threads, the California company that developed the Micro silk material, expected to start selling clothing made with it in the next year or two.
As with any new technology at an early stage of development, initial production of such fabrics continues to be limited and the finished products, costly. Bolt, for example, introduced a lottery in March to sell its first spider-inspired silk neck ties, at $314 each.
And that is before the work of private and public scientific research institutions are taken into account.
Silk produced in a laboratory, for example, would not exist without the breakthrough soft he past 30 years that have enabled scientists to perfect ways toed it and replica te the DNA of living organisms.
After studying spiders’ DNA and their webs, Bolt Threads’ engineers developed similar proteins that are injected into yeast and sugar and then subjected to a proprietary fermentation process. The resulting liquid silk is turned into a fiber through a wet-spinning process that creates strands that then can be knit ted into fabric.
Rivals, which are using similar technology but different production methods, have not produced market able products yet either. The Japanese company S pi ber has an agreement with the North Face, the American active wear company( in 2016, they developed a Moon Park a prototype). And AM Silk, a German company, has partnered with Adidas on products that they will not identify but say are expected to go on sale next year.
Adidas, however, is producing sneakers made with plastics recovered from beaches and ocean front communities, part of a product line developed through its partnership with the activist anti-plastic group Parley for the Oceans .( McCartney, an Adidas collaborator, provided some of the designs.)
Recycled fruit waste is another promising substance for the creation of alternative fabrics. The Italian company Orange Fiber provided the material for Fer rag a mo’ s capsule scarf collection. Ananas An am, based at the Royal College of Art in London, uses pineapple leaf fibers to create an on woven leather like material called Piña tex and brands like E dun, the sustainable fashion label owned by LVMH Moët Hen nessy Louis Vuitt on, are creating items from it.
And my celium, the root like fiber of mushrooms, is being processed as a leather substitute by My coWorks, a San Francisco startup. But some specialists say the material, which looks like suede, needs to be tested for durability.
In addition to bio-fabricated materials, the Stella McCartney brand and its founding partner, the luxury group Ke ring, are investing in way store cycle fashion items and use fewer resources, such as water. McCartney’ s F ala bella Go bags are made of recycled polyester and Econyl, a nylon produced from recycled fishing nets, carpet sand other such waste, manufactured by the Italian company Aquafil.
In recent years, several venture capital firms have supported the development of alternative fabrics.
One of the latest and most highprofile investors is the Russian entrepreneur Mir os lava Du ma, founder of the fashion and lifestyle website Buro 24/7.
In May, Duma introduced Fashion Tech Lab, aventure that funds and develops new technologies in sustainable fashion and wear able technologies. Ithas$50 million in funding and the advisory services of Carmen Bus que ts, the e-commerce investor, and Diane von Furstenberg. Orange Fiber and Vitro Labs, acompany that is developing lab-grown variations of fur and leather from stem cells, were among the organization’ s initial beneficiaries.
Chanel, known for putting a healthy dose of pressure on suppliers to create new yarn sand fabrics every season, hasbeenworking with paper yarn sand is researching the use of 3- D printing for ready-to-wearclothing.
Thehouse, in what it said was a first, presented suit sat its fall 2015 couture show that were made of material produced by a 3- D printer fromsintered, orc ompressed, powder and then embellished with embroidery and br aid by Lesage, one of Chanel’ s métiers d’ art houses.
“Karl Lager feld says we should do things that are unimaginable ,” said Hu bert Barrère,the creative director at Les age .“Creativity is about being in tune with your time.”