We’re getting close to a reality in which my clothes will have more of a life than I do.
There are new efforts to make the world of fashion a lot greener.
The carbon footprint to make most clothes, much less ship them all over the world and then dispose of them when they’re done, is pretty significant.
But then there are the “living fabrics” featured at last month’s Future Fabrics Expo in London.
A whole different world of materials and ideas here – think leather made from mushrooms or cactus leaves, or clothing and accessories made from material from banana trees and pineapple stalks.
These are more sustainable materials that will have less of an impact should they end up in landfills.
But there’s more.
One designer created a type of bioplastic that includes algae powder, material that doesn’t just have a low carbon footprint, it has a negative carbon footprint.
The algae actually draws carbon out of the air!
Now if we started wearing these very different materials we’d probably have to care for them differently as well.
I don’t know if I’d want to toss my carbon-eating algae coat into the washing machine with a cupful of bleach.
Then again, maybe cleaning will be easier. Maybe we can just stick our coats out in the sun and let them breathe.
Today is National Inventors Day, and here’s some highly inventive fashion: an art student in Japan, Rie Sakamoto, put on a fashion show in which the lead material in the clothes was rubber!
As she says, rubber bands are flexible and functional, so they make ideal material for clothes.
Here’s hoping our clothes don’t snap when we’re wearing them though.
Do you have it in green? The living fabrics that can help clean the air (The Guardian)
Rubber Collection: Garments Made From Knitted Rubber Bands (Spoon and Tamago)
