Frame - 17 February 2018

SARA REGAL ALONSO’s material-

focused methods – and her

research into fusing modern mass

production and craft – led to her

selection for ‘The Challenge’.

DESIGN FOR A CLEAN PLANET

Nº 3

Writing a Wrong

SARA REGAL ALONSO envisions a new process to help

combat waste in the fast fashion industry.

You want to clean up the fashion industry...

SARA REGAL ALONSO: Yes. After oil, fashion

is the second most pollutive industry in the

world. Its impact isn’t just due to the manufac-

ture and transportation of products, but also

to the millions of tonnes of clothes that are

dumped worldwide: 15 million tonnes in the

EU alone in 2016. Only a tiny percentage of

these clothes are recycled – in a process that

involves more transport and pollution.

How do you propose changing this situation?

With a new method of upcycling textiles based

on a worldwide network of local artisans

trained to use a special machine – the Texti-

legrapher – to make functional products from

the vast amount of discarded fabrics generated

by the fast fashion industry. The result is more

environmentally responsible clothing.

How does the machine work? My Texti-

legrapher combines the technology of a

3D-printing pen with the recycling method of

a Protocycler, a machine that converts waste

plastic into valuable 3D printer filament.

Discarded textiles would be dumped into my

machine, trimmed into smaller pieces and

melted before emerging from the pen.

So it’s creative and sustainable? Yes. I see

this future craft as a union of handwork and

machine. In terms of environmental impact,

minimum transport of the discarded textiles

is required, and as the application is done by

hand, it offers plenty of creative opportuni-

ties, too.

How do you envision your concept being

employed? Firstly – and most simply – the

new material would be used to create patterns

and graphic styles on a textile’s surface. It’s

also possible to treat the material as a binder,

which would replace the stitching in tradi-

tional garments. Discarded material could be

‘glued’ together to make new articles of cloth-

ing. Think of it as a paper collage, but with old

garments replacing the paper and the recycled

raw material acting as the glue.

The converted waste plastic could also

be used for 3D printing everything from new

garments and knitted structures to acces-

sories, such as buttons, buckles and soles for

shoes. The latter would be similar to Adidas’s

Futurecraft 3D-printed polyester soles. The

flexibility of the resulting material depends on

the composition of fabrics mixed by the local

artisans, so the possibilities are endless. – WG

sararegal.com

40 THE CHALLENGE