filtering down to the next generation of
fashion-industry pioneers.
“We either need to consume less or
make new discoveries that reduce the
impact of what we produce,” he says,
pragmatically. Since the former scenario is
unlikely, he is turning his attention to AI-led
design, where hard data about which
designs sell, and why, is used to
manufacture only what people really want
in the mass market, rather than producing
tens of thousands of garments that never
sell and end up in landfill. Another direction
is augmented garments, where, for
example, base-layer garments have
digital effects laid over them, making the
design changeable. This may also sound
like sci-fi fantasy, but with augmented
reality being integrated into our phones
and glasses, it is an inevitable next step.The biggest buzz and excitement,
however, is around biotechnology
accelerators such as London’s Open Cell- 45 shipping containers in Shepherd’s
Bush, London, comprising offices,
workshops and biology labs for early-
stage start-ups and designers. Open Cell
claims that 50 per cent of emerging
biotech startups come from outside
university tech-transfer channels, with much
of the growth happening in London, where
there are networks, infrastructure and a
deep talent pool. These businesses have
to choose between empty labs, costing
tens of thousands to equip, or expensive
university facilities, so Open Cell exists to
fill that gap and allow designers and
engineers to carry out biotech prototyping
rapidly and cheaply. This is expected to
give rise to exciting and revolutionary
biotech materials that solve sustainability
problems, among others. Current residents
include Chip[s] Board, which is
developing an eco-friendly alternative to
chipboard and MDF using potato waste.
Looking beyond the fashion industry,
next in the firing line is construction. Vincent
Callebaut, through his eponymous
architecture company, has been working
on Aequorea, an “oceanscrapers”
concept that proposes an underwater
village that extends 1,000 metres below
the water’s surface. Its buildings would be
3D-printed from algoplast, “a composite
of algae and the seventh continent’s
garbage” – the seventh continent being
the “infamous soup of plastics” created by
the dumping of millions of tonnes of plastic
into the oceans. Referring to himself as an
“archibiotect”, Callebaut works with
scientists, engineers and architects to help
him with his mission to design buildings
that solve as many environmental and
overpopulation problems as possible.
Callebaut explains his philosophy as
being based on the “cyclical and
symbiotic ecosystems” of the planet that
replenish themselves in nature. Alongside
his oceanscrapers vision, he envisages
a future society that he calls People of the
Seas. In their prospective underwater
ecosystem, there is no need for coal, oil,
gas or nuclear energy to power lighting
systems – light is instead provided by
bioluminescence, thanks to symbiotic
organisms that emit light through oxidation.
On the ocean floor, a field of water
turbines, shaped like spirals and laid out in
a star pattern around a scientific base, turn
the sea currents into electrical energy.
So between us and an early departure
to the moon to join Bezos’ off-world storage
facilities and lunar city are a number of
technologies that may yet keep Earth
habitable. Fashion’s number is up, along
with oil and gas, so get ready for a circular
economy, where a wardrobe of lab-grown
leather and turning your old jeans into your
new tabletop is the new reality. E“GET READY
for a CIRCULAR
ECONOMY,
WHERE a
WARDROBE of
LAB-GROWN
LEATHER is the
NEW REALITY”environmental and ethical issues can be
circumvented, “saving 57,000 litres of
water and one tonne of solid waste for
every tonne of conventional leather
produced by traditional manufacturing
methods,” says Duma. Importantly, it would
also benefit tannery workers who suffer
from serious reproductive and general
health issues caused by the toxic chemicals
used in the tanneries. At the time of joining
the FTL portfolio in 2017, VitroLabs had
made only small chunks of skin and were
still working on scaling up their processes
for commercial availability.
Duma goes on to say that while “many
garment producers are primarily
concerned with using sustainable raw
materials, such as organic cotton, there is
huge room for progress at the opposite
end of the cycle – the recycling
technologies”. It may not be the sexiest
area to dig into, but successfully harnessing
textile and post-consumer garment waste
has the potential to stop millions of tonnes
of landfill waste being created annually,
so the companies that devise ways of
recycling mixed-fibre textiles will instigate
a paradigm shift in the effort
towards achieving sustainability. BRIA’s
development tackles cotton and viscose
recycling, however, more complex
composites, such as cotton and elastane,
are currently impossible to recycle, as the
two fibres cannot be separated. This is
where FTL’s investment in companies
that are developing circular-recycling
technology, such as Worn Again and
Evrnu, is seeking to break new ground.
From textiles to technology, Matthew
Drinkwater, head of the Fashion Innovation
Agency (FIA) at London College of
Fashion, is charged with daring to dream
about how fashion and technology might
work together to solve its problems in
design, production and presentation.
While the projects he facilitates may be
experimental, they look to a future where
fashion is tech-enabled, making it more
economical, efficient and, perhaps
unexpectedly, emotional. With the FIA
being housed at one of the world’s top
fashion design institutions, its findings areAdditional words: Hannah James
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