Amid a global COVID-19 pandemic, urgent pleas of climate change activists and roaring bellows of a fallen fashion system, there is a thin silver lining that holds the promise of change: plant-based and lab-grown materials.
Moving on from the ‘80s pleather and surge of synthetic fabrics, there’s major innovation and breakthroughs in the materials industry. From mushroom leather to pineapple leaves to living organisms, a multitude of novel ideas are circulating around that could potentially replace animal-based fabrics and non-biodegradable synthetics.
Many of the garments today hold a hidden element of toxicity. The modern clothing industry is infamous for its high use of energy, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and chemical-ridden dyes that end up being dumped into rivers. Low labor wages, oppressed garment workers and clogged-up landfills are only exacerbating the situation.
The clothes we wear are made out of either natural or synthetic fabrics. Natural fabrics include cotton (heavy on pesticides and insecticides; a water-intensive crop), wool (according to Material Innovation Initiative, 4 million land animals are slaughtered, plucked or sheared every year), and silk (woven by silkworms; not exactly vegan-friendly). Meanwhile, synthetic fabrics like plastic-based acrylic, nylon or polyester are made using petroleum, which requires a deeply complex procedure that’s harmful for the environment.
With the advent of plant-based and bioengineered materials that a growing group of innovators and researchers are experimenting with, majority of these problems are predicted to cease.
Plant-based derivatives are seeing an interesting turn with never-thought-of-before materials being produced as alternatives to animal leather. Mushroom, especially, is gaining popularity. MuSkin, a 100% vegetable layer, is created from the caps of mushrooms that grow naturally in subtropical forests. Last year, Reishi (a fungus-grown textile that looks and feels like leather) was launched at New York Fashion Week. American companies MycoWorks and Bolt Threads both offer vegan leather created from mycelium (the underground root structure of mushrooms).
Using fruits like pineapple and oranges to create a durable textile is another interesting innovation in vegan fashion. Piñatex is a natural leather alternative made from cellulose fibers of pineapple leaves. Orange Fiber, a Sicily-based company, works with citrus cellulose collected from waste generated by fruit farms, which is then spun into yarn and woven into a silky fabric.
Italian company VEGEA is a known name in the biomaterials industry that has created a groundbreaking leather-like fabric: V-Textile. This vegan-coated fabric is made from extracted biopolymers from wine industry biomass like grape skins, seeds and stalks.
American company Modern Meadow is using collagen, a naturally-developing protein found in animal and human skin to develop their materials. But instead of taking it from an animal, the collagen they’re using comes from yeast cells.
Some bioengineered materials—made from living bacteria, yeast, fungi or algae—will eventually break down into non-toxic substances when they are discarded. Many of these living organisms can be grown to fit molds, thereby producing the exact size of textile needed to craft a garment. This also eliminates the need for factory assembly!
These new-generation materials don’t require natural resources the way fabrics like cotton do. The end result is a drastic reduction in textile waste, environmental pollution and the overall carbon footprint.
These technological advancements are revolutionizing the materials industry, but there are two problematic areas: first, these materials are coated with a non-biodegradable petroleum-based resin (for example, Piñatex is coated with PLA, a petroleum-based resin). While this is done to ensure the material doesn’t biodegrade while being worn, it leads to a vegan textile that isn’t 100% sustainable.
The second obvious issue is getting these innovative plant-based and lab-grown materials out into the market for consumers. For that to happen, these textiles need to be produced on a large-scale and require a durability that can stand the everyday wear-and-tear for us to see even a sliver of disruption.
Though there’s a long way to go, these new and exciting innovations show us hope for the fashion industry to improve its reputation and make a positive impact on the environment and planet.
