Fashion is built on cyclical trends. As Heidi Klum famously said on Project Runway, “One day you’re in. And the next day you’re out.” But that also makes the industry inherently wasteful. So what if instead of sending old clothes to the landfill, you could dissolve them?
Scarlett Yang, a recent graduate from acclaimed London design school Central Saint Martins, developed a dress that does just that for her graduate collection. Yang designed an ethereal, sculptural high-fashion dress made from silk cocoon protein and algae extract. The textile is completely biodegradable. While it’s just a conceptual project for now, it points to the possibility of a fashion lifecycle in which garments are intentionally designed to be sustainable.
Algae has made a few recent appearances as a replacement for plastic. A California-based lab called Algenesisdevelopeda biodegradable, algae-based polyurethane that could be used in flip-flops, while interdisciplinary designer Charlotte McCurdy developed atranslucent raincoatmade out of the biodegradable material in 2019. All of these developments point to a recognition among emerging designers that things need to change. “The vast majority of the textile on the market is not recyclable, that means we as young generation fashion graduates/students are also contributing to the pollution issues if we still do things the traditional way,” says Yang. “Like many of my peers and tutors, I cannot ignore the fact the we need changes.”So can we expect to see eco-friendly, algae-based conceptual design hit the world of high fashion? While Yang doesn’t have a set date to send her garments down an IRL runway, she created a collection of digital garments with 3D material simulation, which will be available in the near future to purchase for use in augmented reality and CGI.
Now that might be the most 2020 application yet.
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