Technological advances, changes in society and the desire to reduce the damage that the fashion industry does to nature all motivate scientists, inventors and designers to come up with new ways to make clothes. Now, having entered the store of any brand, it is difficult to imagine that our grandchildren will buy completely different things. Already today, technologies are being developed that can completely change fashion. The Knife studied what clothes we might wear in the future.
Digital bow
In March 2020, Russian media wrote that Yandex media director Daniil Trabun bought digital clothes from Ufa-based designer Regina Turbina, becoming one of the first owners of a virtual image. However, such actions are not something out of the ordinary for a long time: for many years, video game users have been buying items for real money, including clothes, that they will never be able to use outside the game world.
Digital suits like the one Trabun bought are the same kind of acquisition. They are often compared to paper clothes for cardboard dolls, a once popular children's entertainment. You can wear digital things in photos and videos: the owner takes a photo of himself, and then overlays a 3D model on the image.
For the first time, the collection of these clothes was presented in 2018 - this is how the creative agency Virtue drew attention to the opening of the Carlings online store. Now other brands also do this, as a rule, also for PR.
Digital clothing is much greener. In addition, it can be made in a single copy and inexpensively (about 10-50 euros) compared to physically existing things made to order. However, there are some very expensive digital outfits, such as the Iridescence dress, bought for 7,800 pounds.
The Iridescence dress was created by Berlin-based artist Johanna Jaskowska in collaboration with game studio Dapper Labs and digital fashion house The Fabricant.
Promotional video:
Another plus of digital clothing for those who like to stand out: it can break the laws of physics and, due to this, look very unusual. While buying a digital bow seems like a whim to many, but only time will tell if this is a fleeting trend or now it is with us forever.
T kani with silver nanoparticles
The use of silver in the production of textiles was not invented yesterday. In the West, at the end of the 20th century, fabrics with silver threads were sold as antimicrobial and antistatic; they were offered to sew medical clothing, to make carpets, mattresses and interior decoration of aircraft and spaceships. In 2007, a student at Cornell University Olivia Ong, together with scientists, created several models of clothing from fabric with nanoparticles of different metals, which, according to the inventors, protected from infections.
However, Spanish scientists fear that the production and washing of fabrics with metals could pollute the water. Therefore, now most often they only talk about fabrics with silver nanowires: this is one of the safest metals. Today there are more than a dozen companies producing not only household and medical textiles with silver, but also clothing - usually sportswear.
To create materials with silver nanowires does not require so much metal to become fabulously expensive. Although such fabrics will not be cheap either, so it will not work to buy them like T-shirts in the mass market. So far, in addition to medical and sportswear, such textiles are used to produce socks that treat foot fungus and wallpaper that protects houses from electromagnetic radiation. But in the future, it will be possible to sew both casual clothes and its individual parts from fabric with silver, for example, pockets that protect smartphones from data theft.
The most famous companies producing textiles with silver and other metals:
- Statex (Germany),
- Shieldex, its independent American division,
- sportswear brand Silvadur of the American corporation Dupont.
Fabrics that charge gadgets
Another know-how is fabrics that generate energy, they are now being developed in Gothenburg (Sweden). In 2018, researchers Anja Lund and Christian Müller demonstrated soft tissue that generates a small electrical charge under pressure and tension (known as piezoelectric materials). The current is generated more efficiently when the threads are wet, which means this technology should work especially well in sportswear.
Anja Lund says that piezoelectric fabrics can be used to sew whole clothes and individual parts. This can be most useful for athletes and travelers during long races and hikes, when it is difficult to charge the necessary devices.
3D printing
3D printing seemed like something of a breakthrough and groundbreaking in the early to mid-2010s, but now the technology seems to be becoming commonplace in a wide variety of fields, including fashion. Dutch designer Iris van Harpen has made 3D printing a hallmark of her brand and creates recognizable surreal pieces that are reminiscent of the architecture of Zaha Hadid's buildings. Van Harpen's lesser-known compatriot Martje Dijkstra also works with 3D-printed textiles, and her clothes are highly regarded by fashion critics.
In 2016, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted the Manus x Machina exhibition about fashion in an era of technological advancement. Among other things, there were things printed on a 3D printer, including a Chanel suit by Karl Lagerfeld. Sneaker makers are also starting to look at 3D printing, but the future of these initiatives is uncertain.
Now the question is not even how to apply this technology to the manufacture of clothing and accessories (this is already a reality).
Other natural fabrics
Now humanity faces a global goal - to minimize the harm it causes to nature. The fashion industry has turned out to be one of the main sources of evil in a number of ways - from provoking people to hyper consumption to harmful emissions during the flights of crowds of people for fashion weeks. Textile production itself pollutes the environment, but some fabrics affect the environment more strongly, while the damage from others is minimal.
For example, the popular polyester and nylon are made from petroleum products, and all synthetic fabrics in nature will decompose for millennia. So far, manufacturers have not been able to come up with truly biodegradable synthetic textiles. The only relatively environmentally friendly way to buy these fabrics is to choose those obtained by a recycling method (for example, from plastic containers).
Another popular type of fabric is cotton, which is loved for its naturalness and cheapness. It makes 40% of all clothing produced in the world. The problem is that cotton is often grown using pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and increase global warming.
For example, the Aral Sea on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan has almost dried up, in part because Uzbekistan is intensively growing cotton. A large body of water disappeared - and the climate of the region became more arid, which made life difficult for the local population.
The label "organic cotton" only means that no toxic substances were used in its cultivation, but it is destructive for water resources. This has led many designers and scientists to consider possible replacements for popular fabrics.
In Andersen's fairy tale "The Wild Swans," Princess Eliza is forced to weave 11 shirts from graveyard nettles in order to remove the spell from her brothers and turn them from swans back into humans. What for Eliza was a curse and a feat can be a way out nowadays: textiles made from unpretentious, growing everywhere nettles can replace less environmentally friendly cotton.
The nettle fiber fabric was made in Korea a couple of millennia ago and was worn by wealthy people in the region. Some European countries also made similar clothes. Now this fact of European history is almost forgotten, but it seems that companies reviving nettle textiles will return it to fashion.
British design duo Vin + Omi has been around since 2004. Its founders immediately decided to make their production as environmentally friendly as possible, so they work with fabrics made from recycled plastic and nettle fibers. In 2020, at London Fashion Week, the duo unveiled a collection using plants from Prince Charles' royal garden. German designer Gezine Jost and Kenyan Green Nettle Textile also work with nettle fabrics, but they are still far from the success of Vin + Omi, whose clothes are worn by Kate Moss, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama.
Milk cotton was first created in the 1930s, but then the technology had not yet developed enough to organize an entire production. In the second half of the 2010s, it became possible, and the public saw the first results about two years ago. Italian designer Antonella Bellina created the Duedilatte brand and produces t-shirts for children and adults from milk cotton. She says that such fabric is hypoallergenic, moisturizes the skin, and has an antibacterial effect. This technology is also economical and environmentally friendly: the production of one kilogram of milk cotton requires less than 1 liter of water, and for the same amount of vegetable cotton - about 15 liters.
Simultaneously with the Italians, the German microbiologist and designer Anke Domaske launched her milk cotton clothing brand Qmilk. Domaske says that such fabric became an outlet for her family: when one of her relatives fell ill with cancer, he became allergic to almost all existing types of textiles. Cloth made from expired milk simultaneously solves the problem of saving natural resources and reducing waste, because this way a product that is not suitable for food gets a second chance.
Another potentially popular natural material is citrus juice fabrics. The Italian startup Orange Fiber is working in this direction. In 2019, the company created a joint collection with H&M, but is ready to cooperate with any brands. Not surprisingly, Orange Fiber was born in Italy, where 700,000 tons of citrus waste is produced annually. The company has two objectives: reducing waste and making sustainable fabrics.
Faux leather made from mushrooms
In 2016, the American startup MycoWorks presented a material made from mushrooms, indistinguishable from leather from a distance. Their competitors are the innovative company Bolt Threads and their version of a product called Mylo. In Italy, there is a similar development - a muskin from the Grado Zero Espace company.
Unlike leather items, muskin is not treated with environmentally harmful chemicals.
If the production of artificial leather from mushrooms can be brought to a high level and mass-produced, this will help solve serious problems:
- ethical - animals are killed in order to make clothes and shoes from their skin;
- ecological - livestock contributes to the greenhouse effect and global warming.
Clothes as a gadget
Now, data about our health is collected by fitness bracelets and smartphones. But modern technology has already come to weave wires, chips and microcircuits into clothing so that it remains comfortable. Running shorts may soon be reading your heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure.
The Canadian company Myant is currently embedding sensors only in underwear, but plans to use more technology and expand the range. The German company Interactive Wear has been developing technologies and creating textiles with LED bulbs, sensors, sensors and controllers for 15 years to regulate the temperature.
The ability to adjust the temperature is one of the most popular options that fashion innovators are striving to introduce into clothing. In 2015, Moon Berlin introduced a battery-powered heated coat. Temperature-controlled clothing can permanently solve the problem when it is cold outside in winter and hot indoors in the same clothing.
Bacterial tissue
Biologists suggest using not only milk, mushrooms and orange peel in the fashion industry, but also bacteria. In 2016, bioengineer Wang Wang, along with a team of scientists, proposed regulating the ventilation of sportswear fabric using bacteria that respond to human body temperature and humidity. They came up with a fabric for the New Balance brand with a ventilation system that works when an athlete sweats in training.
American Suzanne Lee, founder of Bio Couture and senior researcher at the Central College of Fashion, also works with bacteria. Saint Martin in London. It creates a skin-like material from a mixture of tea and bacteria - the same kombucha that makes a drink called kombucha.
This is one of the most innovative ways to rethink fashion so far, and now it is difficult to say whether it will be possible to make such production mass-produced.
Author: Marina Agliullina