www.fastcompany.com: Adidas redesigned its classic Stan Smith sneakers with mushroom-based mycelium leather; Lululemon used the same material to make yoga mats and accessories; and Stella McCartney used it to make a bag and bustier. Newlight, a startup that turns greenhouse gas emissions into carbon-negative leather, has partnered with Nike. The North Face made a limited-edition jacket from Spiber, a version of silk that’s fermented in tanks like beer.
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This feels like it comes out of a children’s book. Apples making up the seats of your car, wearing fermented spider webs. How wonderful and inspiring is that. I hope these alternatives can become sustainable and economically viable, because using all parts of waste is something that we all have to become skilled with soon as non-renewable resources dwindle. It also raises questions for me in how they decompose. What is the half-life of organically based synthetics, how will this affect pollution? How can we make this mainstream, and distribute equipment and resources to all producers. Despite the immense amount of questions and confusion I hold, I am extremely excited to see where this takes it. The future seems to be looking brighter! To me, the challenges that are formed by the material science behind these alternatives will probably promote extreme cultural and design changes, but of course this is just a hypothesis.
These materials and experiments by brands big and small across the world are a perfect example of what we should be doing everywhere in every industry. There are massive reactionary steps to take as we combat our own effect on the climate and environment of our planet, but these are good examples of preemptive actions that create a blueprint for a version of our world in which we live in harmony with nature (relative harmony). And on a more surface level, these are really really cool. Like, imagine wearing shoes made out of mushrooms and a fermented silk dress, like that is so glam in a swamp witch sort of nymph kind of way. And that is very in right now. I would even like these items even better if they were more naturey and wonky, they all still look very standardized unfortunately, though I suppose they probably sell better that way and are easier to list for companies trying to sell one uniform thing.
Sustainable materials such as these are so fascinating and honestly unbelievable. Like I don’t comprehend how a mushroom or a flower could be made into a coat or a pair of shoes, it seems so dystopian. The problem is that these things will stay in “high fashion” and luxury for a pretty long time. As the article discusses, not only is the material itself still in process, people still have to learn how to work with it. Obviously it may be similar to real leather but there will be properties that make it have to be sewn in a different way, so people must learn that new method. Unfortunately all of these things cost money, which cause any product made with these materials cost more and more. This just makes me think of fast fashion and how we want to blame environmental issues on individuals, when in reality it is the company. These sustainable garments are insanely expensive, the average person cannot afford them, they are blocked out of this opportunity to be sustainable and then we still don’t hold unsustainable fashion accountable, instead people blame working class people for buying clothes.
I found the information in this article extremely interesting and relevant for our the state of our world today. As someone who is vegetarian, I always keep in mind the impact my actions have on the environment, and I am always looking for ways to live a more sustainable life. As this article points out, there are so many ways to approach replacing previously animal supplied materials that there is no reason not to move this industry forward. I find it important that the focus is to reuse waste that is already being produced rather than producing fake waste to then “recycle” because the goal is to make a positive impact, not just neutralize the damage. Something that was not mentioned in this article was affordability and that it is important to make sustainable products available to everyone, not just those who can “afford to live sustainably”. The author makes a very good point about practicality for manufacturing such products because this is a somewhat new field and people must learn what machines are good for what processes.
This article was fascinating and so exciting. I feel hopeful for the future with sustainability like this being achieved. I do think that sustainability efforts in America will be driven by consumer behavior and capitalism, it is just how our country works. People like money and other people love to buy things. Additionally, when people buy sustainable products they feel good about themselves so they buy more. I eventually think that this system could work. But consumers working together with corporations to make the world cleaner is likely a long way away. This article makes me wonder what is the point? Does making sustainable products on a small scale actually helpful or is it just for looks and profit? I don’t know. I certainly hope that it helps especially because I really love buying sustainable things. Something that comes with mass production is accessibility which is something that would be really helpful for the sustainability industry. If everyone could afford to be sustainable it would probably be more helpful.
The fashion industry, especially consumer level fast fashion, is one of the most wasteful industries. Creating materials for clothing that are not only less wasteful, but also actively serving as carbon sinks, is a game changer in making fast fashion a more ethical industry. However, this article brings up a good point about the feasibility of these projects going large scale. Of all of these collaborations and companies, the only one I had ever heard of was allbirds. Especially for companies that make one or two products in sustainable materials when they can afford to go all the way, this trend seems like just that- a fad that a few companies will get into to swing buyers, but nothing that will change the industry as a whole. That being said, consumer behavior is powerful and unpredictable. Just as the food industry has been completely disrupted by the rise of plant based diets, maybe the clothing industry will get a much needed shake up as well. I, for one, would love to see it.
I found this article incredibly fascinating, especially as I’ve been meaning to start a fashion line using only renewable and ecofriendly products. Currently I am working on a fashion line for the Lunar Gala with a close friend of mine Oscar, who is an architecture student, and over the past couple months we have been creating garments made of sustainable fabrics and dyes. Many of the fabrics use bamboo fibers, but there is an array of plants-based fabrics weave used and implemented to create garments that actually have a negative carbon output unlike many fast fashion brands. Along with this we have been using dyes that implement ingredients like raspberries for a red/pink dye, and matcha for a deep almost neon green. The whole process of creating these garments has been so rewarding and I am excited to see where we can bring it. Exploring alternative fabrics is vital, and I genuinely had no idea that there was a leather made from mushrooms that existed on the market. I am Definity going to look more into this, because it sounds like the perfect material for my next project which should involve lots of leather.
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