EXECUTIVEPAGESthroughout the production phase, but also resources like water, farm-
land and transport,” Hoitink told me.
The material also leaves no waste behind. “After wearing, you can
simply bury the garment in the ground and it will decompose,” Hoitink
told me.
NEFFA has already created several prototypes of dresses, jackets
and purses created using this method. “Technologies to fabricate
textiles need an huge update,” said Hoitink. “A tree has a new set of
leaves every year. Nature has its own consumptive behaviour and
yet it manages to keep the planet healthy. What can we learn from
that? Biomimicry & biology should play a bigger role in our future.”
Jacket prototype by NEFFADyeing clothes with bacteria
The dyeing industry makes a huge environmental impact in terms
of water use and water pollution. In the UK, the firm Faber Futures
is developing an alternative dyeing method through fermentation,
using bacteria such as Streptomyces coelicolor.
“Water is reduced massively and we don’t need to use any chemi-
cals because the dye is deployed directly onto the textile,” said
Natsai Audrey Chieza, founder & Director of Faber Futures. In early
tests, her technology has proven to use 500 times less water than
conventional dyeing. “In many aspects this is a revolution in textile
dyeing.”
Faber Futures is developing colorfast dyes that don’t fade with time
or washing. In the future, biology could unlock new possibilities for Faber Futures bacterial dye:
dyeing, such as adaptive colors. “Beyond sustainability, we are Natsai Audrey Chieza holding
talking about new capabilities and new features beyond our one- fabric dyed with bacteria
dimensional way of thinking about dye,” Chieza said. Chieza is now working with several brands to de-
velop together the best strategies to incorporate this dyeing technology to their individual needs. She
expects to have the first products launched in the next couple of years. “We are looking at different
approaches to fermentation and extracting pigments to achieve various finishes,” said Chieza. “We are
looking at it from a holistic, systemic approach to explore how to design with biology.”
The future of fashion
There is still a lot of work needed until biofabrication becomes mainstream in the fashion industry and
replaces traditional methods to produce and dye fabric. One of the big challenges is transforming proto-
type biological processes into industrial-scale production, which will be key to make these products
widely available and affordable.
“With any fundamentally new material, the price point will initially be above common materials, both to
reflect the impact of the innovation and to take account of the material’s value,” said Klein. “As the
industry begins to scale up, and as you see companies begin to produce these biofabricated materials at
commercial scale, we will begin seeing them approach the broader market.”
Another challenge is to determine the real impact that these new processes actually have on the environ-
ment. “What needs to be measured, and nobody has done this yet because scale-up is still in progress,
is a full life cycle analysis,” said Chieza. “We have to remember that fermentation is tied to carbon, which
currently comes from sugar. We have to look at sustainability in terms of the input.”
As biofabrication keeps advancing and scaling up, the fashion industry is poised to change radically.
“Fashion will need to become more comfortable with longer R&D cycles and perhaps somewhat slower
consumption. The fashion industry is very much powered to produce and discard, and that model is
broken,” added Chieza.
“We want a fashion industry that is clean, healthy and sustainable, for the workers and for the end users,”
said Krebs. “We are the green engine for the fashion revolution.”
It will take time. After all, it took decades since nylon was developed in the 1930s until it became as
ubiquitous as it is today. But the future of fashion is already here, and biology is the future. (Courtesy:
Clara RodrÍguez FernÁndez, Biotech Journalist, Berlin Area, Germany)
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