Uk.businessinsider.
The Consumer. Japanese ‘Spider-Man’ Hopes to Spin Startup Gold from Artificial Silk. Later this year, outdoor-gear retailer North Face will offer its environmentally conscious shoppers at its outlet in Tokyo’s posh Harajuku fashion district a chance to save the planet.
North Face’s outlets in Japan will sell a $1,000, special edition “Moon Parka,” a gold-colored jacket based on the design of its existing Antarctica parka, made out of synthetic spider silk, a super-strong material developed by Spiber Inc. Spiber President Kazuhide Sekiyama, 33, who invented the company’s technology to make artificial spider silk, said releasing what he calls the world’s first commercial piece of clothing made from the bio-fiber protein material is just the beginning. Qmonos: A Silk Thread Four Times Stronger Than Steel but More Flexible than Nylon - World Industrial Reporter. A peek inside the world of biofabrication, where leather is grown in a lab.
This story originally appeared on Grist.
The world of biofabrication, where the organisms, cells, and molecules of life form the basis of our built world, is a weird and wonderful place. There’s furniture made of fungi, inks manufactured by microbes, lab-grown bones, and 3D-printed tissue. There are home bioreactors full of protein-rich algae and clothes cultured from animal cells. Fashion's Biological Future Is Now. In an industry notorious for transience, flux and experimentation, it’s counterintuitive to consider that the fashion system is stuck in a rut when it comes to materials and real sustainability.
Year after year, season after season, there’s this feeling of velocity, of working towards something better. Sure, there are a million ways a shirt can look, but if the way that shirt is made never changes, are things actually changing - or is it simply an illusion of progress? Designers, press and editors alike continue to rationalize what happens to animals caught up in the fashion industrial complex as a necessary evil in achieving the highest quality, performance and most luxurious fibers, as if mother nature herself were meticulously positioning a leopard’s spots or softening a goose’s down for the sole purpose of human use. Leather without cows? Shearling without sheep, silk without spiders and furs without foxes? Scope - Biofabrication. Biofabrication™ focuses on cutting-edge research regarding the use of cells, proteins, biological materials and biomaterials as building blocks to manufacture biological systems and/or therapeutic products.
Emphasis is on the development of fabrication technologies, modelling of the fabricated constructs and maturation of biofabricated objects towards the intended tissue types. It includes the following topics: Fashion’s Biotech Future. Birmingham City University - Sign In. Birmingham City University - Sign In. Technology is Key to Driving Sustainability in Fashion - Eco Warrior Princess. Are you aware of the tremendous negative environmental impact of the fashion industry?
“The clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world … second only to oil. It is a really nasty business,” Eileen Fisher, clothing industry magnate and environmental award recipient declared. It's the Second Dirtiest Thing in the World—And You’re Wearing It. Photo Credit: Aleph Studio/Shutterstock.com “The clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world...second only to oil,” the recipient of an environmental award told a stunned Manhattan audience earlier this year.
“It’s a really nasty business...it’s a mess.” The Next Black - A film about the Future of Clothing.
Influencers. Spider Silk: Fusing Nature and Technology. Forbes Welcome. Useful Websites.