Spotted: Fashion design, like many other areas of design, is increasingly digital. Large fashion manufacturers now often digitise their fabrics and then use tools to design products digitally using these fabrics, making sure all measurements and seams are accurate, before manufacturing the physical garments.
However, 3D imaging technology can be very expensive, so smaller designers often have no choice but to produce many physical samples first, each with a different fabric and measurements, wasting time, money, and resources. Bandicoot Imaging Sciences is working to change this with a solution that can quickly and cheaply capture fabrics and materials digitally, without any special equipment, and create digital twins that can be used with other digital design tools.
Bandicoot’s Shimmer View system allows designers to scan their physical fabrics with just 10 minutes of training. The photos are then uploaded to the web app where the cloud service automatically generates physically based texture maps and fabric renders. These can be used with other 3D design tools or digitally shared with customers.
Fashion is big business, and this is reflected in Bandicoot’s recent pre-seed funding round. The company raised AU$1 million (around €605,000) to boost innovation and grow the technology, including the addition of new capabilities to the cloud-based platform. Bandicoot CGO Jørgen Sevild told Springwise that “Bandicoot is the fastest growing material digitisation technology on the market, and we are constantly looking to improve the user experience and impact of our pioneering technological developments.”
From upcycling textiles into new products to delivering integrated analysis of the complete fashion supply chain, there is a wide range of innovations aimed at reducing waste in fashion.
Dr Carmen Hijosa, the Founder and Chief Creative & Innovation Officer of Ananas Anam was inspired to create a natural, sustainable leather alternative after witnessing first-hand the environmental impact of mass leather production and chemical tanning while working as a consultant for the leathergoods industry. Realising that PVC would not be a viable alternative, she embarked on a journey involving years of research and development, including a PhD at the Royal College of Art in London, where Ananas Anam was developed.
Her company creates natural textiles using the fibres from discarded pineapple leaves. The phenomenal growth in popularity of pineapples means that 25 million tonnes of waste a year is created from the plant’s leaves. For the full story, watch the film above.
In Australia, fashion brand Aciae works to the Circle to Zero principle, striving to eliminate waste from every step of its production processes and contributing to the overall reduction of global plastic pollution.
The company’s name is Latin for thread and refers to its practice of turning single-use plastic waste into the thread that’s used to create its machine-washable, waterproof, recyclable shoes. Gathered plastics are cleaned, shredded, and then melted down for extrusion. The extruded fibres are then spun into thread, completing the transformation of trash into fabric.
Founder Tina Li says: “The brand embodies the spirit of women shaping the sustainable development narrative, ensuring we all play a part in the story.”
3. A marketplace that connects fashion brands to deadstock
‘Deadstock’ is a term that refers to the surplus fabric that is generated by fashion houses and normally destined for landfill or the incinerator.
Circular startup Recovo, led by CEO and co-founder Monica Rodriguez, matches buyers of deadstock fabric with those who have it to sell via an easy-to-use online platform. The company has created a curated catalogue of unused natural and synthetic fabrics, yarns, and other production materials, and does all the heavy lifting for sellers. Buyers can browse this catalogue and request samples at the touch of a button.
Since the company was founded in 2021, it has grown rapidly and now operates in 16 countries in the European Union. To date, it has saved the equivalent of 98,000 kilogrammes of CO2 and 22 million litres of water.
Re-Fresh Global, a Berlin based startup co founded in 2021 by Viktoria Kanar and Revital Nadiv, is turning discarded clothing into new raw materials. These materials can be used to create products like cosmetics, cars, packaging, pharmaceuticals, fibres, and furniture.
First, the company uses its automated technology to sort and separate textile waste, depending on its material composition and colour. Then, Re-fresh’s patented biotechnology transforms shredded textile fibres into industrial quantities of new and highly versatile resources.
This process creates three new, raw material types: nanocellulose, ethanol, and sanitised textile pulp. The nanocellulose is strong and highly versatile, meaning it can be used in items including packaging, paper, and pharmaceuticals. The pure bioethanol (alcohol) has various useful applications across the beauty, sanitation, and biofuel industries. And finally, the textile pulp, made from recycled natural and synthetic fibres, can be used in the production of new fibres, whether that be for car upholstery or sound-absorbing workplace interiors.
American interior designer, fashion influencer and “geriatric starlet” Iris Apfel has passed away at the age of 102.
The death of the multidisciplinary creative, who was recognised for her flamboyant personal style, was announced on her Instagram account with an image of Apfel in her trademark oversized glasses.
Apfel, who worked in the interiors and fashion industries throughout her career, shot to international fame in her 80s and 90s after New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited a show of her eclectic clothes and accessories in 2005.
Born Iris Barrel in 1921 in Queens, Apfel studied art history at New York University and art at the University of Wisconsin.
After graduating, she worked for fashion magazine Women’s Wear Daily before interning for interior designer Elinor Johnson.
Together with her late husband Carl Apfel, whom she married in 1948, she set up the brand Old World Weavers – a company that specialised in striking textiles informed by things found on the Apfels’ travels.
Under Old World Weavers, the duo completed high-profile projects such as restoring the White House interiors for nine presidents including Harry Truman and Bill Clinton.
The designer became a visiting lecturer at the University of Texas in 2011, where she taught fashion students about textiles and crafts.
In later life, Apfel became a staple of the fashion industry. In 2018, toy manufacturer Mattel created a Barbie doll in the designer’s image, although it was not for sale. At the age of 97, she signed a modelling contract with IMG Models.
Apfel playfully called herself a “geriatric starlet” and described the prospect of retirement as “a fate worse than death” shortly after turning 100.
Following the news of her passing, designers around the world paid tribute to Apfel’s legacy. “Iris Apfel has become a world-famous fashion icon because of her incredible talent not only as an artist but as an influencer,” said fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger.
The photography is by Ron Adar courtesy of Shutterstock.
Fashion retailer Aro Archive’s pastel-hued east London store was designed by founder Ariana Waiata Sheehan to evoke “a sense of otherworldliness”.
The store, located in Shoreditch, replaces the brand’s previous, more industrial store on nearby Broadway Market and was intended to have a frivolous feel.
The Aro Archive store has pastel-coloured floors in pink and blue
The interior has “a sense of otherworldliness, escapism and fun,” Waiata Sheehan explains, comparing it to “a mixture between a mushroom trip and going to visit someone’s rich aunty who runs a gallery”.
“We’ve always had very neutral industrial spaces,” she told Dezeen. |But you can get an industrial Zara these days, so time to switch it up and go full personality, which has been scary but so worth it.”
It is located inside an old Victorian warehouse
Located inside a five-storey former Victorian warehouse, Aro Archive, which sells pre-owned clothing by avant-garde designers, was organised so that each floor has a different colour.
Monochrome pastel pink, blue and white hues decorate the different levels, which also feature a wide range of reclaimed and recycled materials, furniture and artworks.
Founder Ariana Waiata Sheehan created the interior design
“The pink floor is supposed to feel very warm, womb-like and enclosed,” Waiata Sheehan said. “The blue floor is more light and otherworldly. And the two white floors are very ethereal and calm.”
White duvet covers by fashion house Maison Martin Margiela were used to create curtains for the changing rooms, while interior pillars are made from reclaimed 1990s metal lamp posts that the designer sourced from a scrapyard in Preston.
Duvet covers by Maison Martin Margiela frame the changing rooms
“The building and surrounding area feel very London, so we did want to bring in a sense of that for example with the lamp posts, metal works and details, bright neon lights and so forth,” Waiata Sheehan said.
She sourced a number of unusual furnishings for the Aro Archive store, including an industrial control station from a paper-manufacturing plant that is now used as a till.
“The industrial paper control station I’ve been watching on eBay for nearly 4 years, waiting for a time I had the space to buy it,” Waiata Sheehan explained. “I wanted something different to the normal till, they’re all so boring and square.”
The store also has another large metal till and metal drawers that originally came from a 1980s Mary Quant store and were rescued from a squat in Hackney Wick.
A large metal till was originally from a Mary Quant store
Waiata Sheehan also sourced several smaller pieces for the boutique, where customers can purchase everything down to the artwork, furniture and accessories.
“I do all the buying so everything is here because I love it in some way,” she explained. “But in terms of favourite pieces in store right now?”
“For fashion, it’s the Rick Owens orange shearling gimp mask gilet, for objects the Shirin Guild ceramic incense holders and for furniture the wobbly glass table with magazine racks.”
Waiata Sheehan bought an old industrial control station from eBay
Waiata Sheehan hopes the Aro Archive boutique will feel like a home away from home and help to create a community feel in the area.
“I think Shoreditch is lacking a sense of community and I wanted to work that into the space,” she said. “The feeling of a chaotic family home and a feeling of togetherness.”
Lampposts from a scrapyard form pillars inside the store
Other London stores with notable interior design recently covered on Dezeen include Swedish fashion brand Toteme’s newly-opened Mayfair store and a Coach pop-up store at Selfridges that had fixtures made from recyclable materials.
A grape-based leather alternative and sequins made from tree cellulose are among 15 material innovations on show as part of fashion house Stella McCartney’s exhibition at the COP28 climate conference.
In partnership with Stella McCartney‘s parent company LVMH, the Sustainable Market showcases “the possibilities of current cutting-edge or soon-to-be available technologies” that could transform the fashion industry.
Stella McCartney is exhibiting the Sustainable Market at COP28
The 15 chosen innovators range from start-ups to established brands, providing plant-based alternatives to plastic, animal leather and fur as well as regenerative alternatives to traditional fibres.
“The fashion industry accounts for eight per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions,” McCartney said. “We need to get creative and innovative with alternatives, moving beyond the limited materials that the industry has been working with traditionally.”
“If we can work collaboratively with these goals, we can actually begin doing business in a way that regenerates our planet instead of only taking from it.”
Among the featured products are iridescent BioSequins by Radiant Matter
Among the featured companies is Radiant Matter, which produces plastic-free iridescent BioSequins, and Mango Materials, which transforms captured methane emissions into plastic as seen in Allbirds’ Moonshot trainers.
US start-up Natural Fiber Welding is presenting its plant-based leather alternative Mirum, which has already been used across Stella McCartney’s Falabella and Frayme bags as well as a series of fragrance-infused jackets by MCQ.
Plant-based Mirum leather is used to produce the Falabella and Frayme bags
The Sustainable Market also showcases examples of finished products including crochet dresses and bags by Stella McCartney that are made using seaweed-based Kelsun yarn and the first-ever garment crafted from biologically recycled polyester by US company Protein Evolution.
Another stall highlights Stella McCartney’s collaboration with Veuve Clicquot to develop a grape-based leather using waste from the champagne house’s harvest.
Seaweed-based Kelsun yarn forms crochet Stelle McCartney bags
The Sustainable Market also highlights three student projects from the Maison/0 incubator at design school Central Saint Martins, which is supported by LVMH.
Automating Violacein by Charlotte Werth explores how an automated microbial dye process can be used to produce printed patterns for luxury textiles.
Other projects examine how bacteria, algae and food waste could offer bio-based alternatives to synthetic dyes, and how lab-grown keratin fibres could be used for luxury clothing.
The products are displayed in market stalls featuring 3D-printed walls infused with a compound by Spanish materials company Pure Tech, which it claims can remove CO2 and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air by converting them into harmless mineral particles.
This bag is made using grape leather made in collaboration with Veuve Clicquot
Other brands invited to participate in the market include US company Brimstone, which claims to have created “the world’s first carbon-negative portland cement”, and Chargeurs Luxury Fibers, which produces wool using regenerative farming methods.
McCartney was asked to represent the fashion industry at COP28 to advocate for policy and regulatory change to incentivise sustainable business and the decarbonisation of the industry.
Several Stella McCartney garments demonstrate the materials possible applications
Her delegation also seeks to promote human and animal welfare while building a coalition of global government and business leaders to scale investment in material innovations.
Recently named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential climate leaders, McCartney bills her eponymous brand as the world’s first luxury fashion house to never use animal leather, feathers, fur or skins.
Chargeurs Luxury Fibers produces wool using regenerative farming methods.
The Sustainable Market concept was first launched as part of her Summer 2024 runway show during Paris Fashion Week and will continue to evolve over the coming year following COP28.
The exhibition is taking place at the climate conference until 12 December in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The stalls were 3D-printed in collaboration with Pure Tech
Last year’s Conference of the Parties (COP), which was held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, saw architect Norman Foster launch a set of sustainability principles for architects while a team of researchers developed an app that predicts damage to global cities from rising sea levels.
The event was described as “deeply depressing” by architect and engineer Smith Mordak in their opinion piece for Dezeen, with other architects and sustainability experts expressing frustration at the slow pace of global action to reduce carbon emissions.
Spotted: With the dyeing industry relying on petrochemicals to affix colour to textiles and requiring around 200 tonnes of fresh water for every tonne of coloured fabric, the challenge of reducing even part of the fashion industry’s environmental footprint is huge.
Now, however, one company, UK-based Colorifix, has created a transformative technology for the textile industry’s dyeing needs. Using fermentation and microbes, the startup creates bioengineered dyes. At the start of the process, Colorifix identifies a colour produced by an animal, plant, or microbe, before isolating the section of the organism’s DNA where the colour is coded. Microbes can then be made to recreate this DNA sequence in the lab without needing to use toxic chemicals.
The company ships a small amount of this microbe-produced colour to a manufacturing client, which then ‘brews’ as much dye as needed for each batch of fabric in a process similar to beermaking. All-natural feedstocks – such as sugar, plant by-products, and yeast – fuel the fermentation process, feeding the fast-growing microbes to create a batch of dye in one to two days.
Colorifix dye is usable in industrial machinery, with no special mechanisms or tools needed. To bind the colour to a fabric, Colorifix, again, replicates a natural process for maximum sustainability. The startup uses engineered microbes to bind the dye to the fabric by concentrating salts and metals that occur naturally in water, making it possible to dye textiles at much lower – almost ambient – temperatures. The binding process is swift and strong, requiring far fewer rinses to attain a colour-fast finish.
The entire process hugely reduces water consumption and carbon emissions, while eliminating the release of chemicals into the world’s waterways. Colorifix was an Eartshot Prize 2023 finalist in the ‘Build a waste-free world’ competition category, and the company is working towards a goal of dyeing 15 per cent of the world’s clothes by 2030.
Developments in the process to detoxify the dyeing process are improving rapidly, with examples in Springwise’s database including a new low-temperature, bio-based process and a recycling programme that creates jobs and reduces water waste by turning temple flowers into natural dyes.
Chinese car manufacturer Nio has launched Blue Sky Lab, its own sustainable fashion brand, which has been shortlisted for a 2023 Dezeen Award.
Blue Sky Lab creates garments and accessories using materials left over from the car manufacturing process including seat belts, airbags and other car-grade fabrics to demonstrate how waste can be “creatively repurposed”.
Nio has launched its own fashion brand
Nio claims the label is “the world’s first sustainable fashion brand launched by an automotive company and brought to mass production”.
Blue Sky Lab made its debut in 2021 at the Shanghai Auto Show and has since reused nearly 55,000 metres of waste fabric.
The pieces are made using leftover materials from car manufacturing
These car-grade surplus materials can help to create new high-performance products, according to the brand.
“Blue Sky Lab enjoys an innate advantage by adopting auto-grade materials in its fashion products as these materials outperform their consumer-grade counterparts to a large extent,” the brand said.
“We think more about improving our products rather than blindly catering to the external environment. For example, the recycled materials from the airbags are light and durable with high strength, a perfect fit for lightweight fashion items.”
Blue Sky Lab launched in 2021 at the Shanghai Auto Show
The materials are simply sterilised and repurposed into a variety of products in line with the brand’s minimal futuristic aesthetic.
“Regarding environmental protection, most visual communication tends to adopt nature and green elements,” the company said.
“However, rather than being confined by such a monotonous style, we have chosen to find inspirations from our DNA and business areas including innovative technologies, manufacturing and industrialization, and lifestyle in carrying out product design.”
“Blue Sky Lab has joined with global design talent including Nio’s designers, Japanese architect Shuhei Aoyama, French leather goods designer Vincent du SARTEL, Finnish designer Rolf Ekroth, NIO user designers and designers from Parsons School of Design, Li-Ning and Allbirds,” the brand added.
The brand told Dezeen it has mass-produced over a hundred different fashion items since its inception alongside tables, stools and lighting fixtures.
Blue Sky Lab has also created furniture and lighting
The brand also partnered with an independent product testing and certification agency to calculate the carbon footprint of its bestselling products.
“Compared with their counterparts made of traditional raw materials, their footprint per unit is 18 to 58 per cent less,” the brand said.
Blue Sky Lab has been shortlisted for a Dezeen Award
Blue Sky Lab has been shortlisted in the sustainable consumer design category of this year’s Dezeen Awards.
Here, the brand is competing against the world’s “first refillable” edge styler and soap-in-a-can brand Kankan.
Spotted: Reports that consumers buy around 60 per cent more clothing than they did at the beginning of the century help to explain the vast amounts of textile waste generated around the world. Much of that waste ends up in the global south, compounding the problems those countries have with their own production excesses. While researchers expect the global textile recycling market to grow significantly in the next few years, to just under $10 billion (around €9.6 billion) by 2030, more still needs to be done to extend the life of clothing.
In South Africa, startup Faro has partnered with a number of different fashion brands to create a new supply chain. Rather than dilute current markets with unsold goods, the company redirects overstock and returns to markets throughout the African continent. Pieces are sold for up to 70 per cent less than the original retail price.
Faro helps reduce textile waste by preventing goods from being sent to landfill while also reducing the reliance that many communities in developing economies have on fast fashion. With much of fast fashion made from virgin fibres and synthetic materials, the re-commerce model brings products from reputable brands to communities that would otherwise buy knockoffs.
Faro manages the entire process, beginning with buying from international fashion brands. The clothing is then sorted and, if needed, reconditioned, before being distributed to micro-merchants for direct-to-consumer sales. Such retailers are able to reach customers who are farther away from urban hubs and who generally have less disposable income. In addition to reselling clothing, Faro pledges to save an equivalent amount of textile waste from landfill through repurposing and upcycling by local artists.
The company recently secured pre-seed funding and plans to open its first retail outlet in October 2023. Up to 20 stores are already being planned for, with at least five to open by mid-2024.
Other solutions showcased in Springwise’s archive of ways in which innovators are reducing textile waste include an easy-to-remove yarn for fast disassembly and artificial intelligence (AI) size recommendations to help reduce returns.
Chinese studio Neri&Hu has completed a store interior for Ms MIN in Shanghai, China, to showcase the fashion brand’s diverse use of materials.
Located at the Taikoo Li shopping complex in central Shanghai, the 195-square-metre store was designed to evoke a sense of traditional home-based atelier that places materials and craftsmanship at its centre.
Neri&Hu designed the store in Taikoo Li
“Before the Industrial Revolution, textiles were made by hand in villages across China by individual families; carding, spinning and weaving all took place in farmhouses, indeed a loom could be found in every well-conditioned homestead,” Neri&Hu explained.
“We harken back to the notion of a traditional fabric atelier, showcasing craftsmanship, rich materiality, and a domestic sensibility.”
White fabric sheets were hung to divide the space
The space was divided into several zones by a series of floor-to-ceiling open grid wooden structures.
White fabric sheet was hung in between a wooden grid to serve as lightweight semi-transparent partitions situated on left and right side of the shop. These were designed to allow plenty of natural daylight into the store.
“Natural daylight and the chaos of the shopping mall are filtered by the sheer fabric screens, giving the space an overall sense of calmness,” Neri&Hu said.
The flexible panels can be re-arranged and interchanged with different materials
The same wooden structures with overhanging eaves to the right side of the shop form a series of more private rooms.
These are used as a reception at the front of the store along with a VIP lounge, VIP fitting room and studio area at the rear of the shop.
An internal courtyard was formed that can accommodate exhibitions
The central display area was arranged by a series of panels, either made with micro-cement or marble and framed in brass, which form an internal courtyard that can be used as an exhibition space.
These panels can be re-arranged and interchanged to suit the changing fashion trends in motifs every season.
The entire shop was paved with curved roof tiles stacked and inlaid, a traditional pavement commonly found in the region.
Neri&Hu also created custom mannequin figures for Ms MIN. According to the studio, the linen-made mannequins have a skin-like subtle texture.
The lightweight semitransparent partitions allow natural daylight into the shop
Neri&Hu was founded by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu in 2004 in Shanghai. Other recent interior projects completed by the studio include cafe brand Blue Bottle’s latest shop and a flexible office space, both in Shanghai.
The photography is by Zhu Runzi.
Project credits:
Partners-in-charge: Lyndon Neri, Rossana Hu Associate-in-charge: Sanif Xu Design team: Muyang Tang, Zhikang Wang, Amber Shi, Yoki Yu, Nicolas Fardet Lighting: Viabizzuno (Shanghai) Contractor: Shanghai Yali Design Decoration Co.
Global team NWDS took a spontaneous approach to designing the Tons fashion boutique in Pittsburgh, which contains a mix of modest materials and iconic furniture pieces.
The Tons store in the city’s East Liberty neighbourhood occupies a long, narrow building with its shorter side facing the street.
The Tons store features a variety of “mundane” materials, including concrete breezeblocks and metal cans
Formerly an atelier, the two-storey structure was reimagined by NWDS to create a light-filled destination “where high-end fashion meets art and design”.
“Inside is a spacious and light-filled interior that now hosts a multifunctional venue designed to meet the needs of a modern-day sartorialist equally interested in fashion, art, and culture,” said the group.
In the lobby, new apparel collections are displayed below a tapestry-like artwork
Designing the interiors of the 400-square-metre space involved dividing up the floor plan into several distinct areas that all flow together, but serve different purposes.
Throughout the various retail and office areas, a selection of unexpected materials were combined and layered.
Some of the walls are splashed or streaked with white paint
Immediately through the glass front door is a lobby where new collections are presented.
Here, product displays were built from concrete breeze blocks, while the upper walls above the clothing rails were dressed in transparent plastic curtains.
Glass panels are used to partition different retail areas
The ceiling above was covered with metal tubes of different lengths and diameters, and gives way to a double-height space where tall tapestry-like artworks by Sasha Brodsky hang over opposite walls, and white paint was seemingly dragged across another.
“There was a lot of spontaneity and many design decisions taken on site: some surfaces were uncovered and left in an unfinished state, and some were splashed with white paint,” NWDS said.
A selection of iconic furniture designs can be found around the store, including Frank Gehry’s Wiggle Chair
Further along, fitting rooms are lined up behind black and white streaked partitions to one side, facing a room defined by glass panels that hosts monobrand products.
Towards the back, a lounge area that also displays shoes is reached by descending a short flight of stairs, which run parallel to a raised, built-in seating area.
A built-in seating area at the back of the store overlook the sunken shoe room
The lower floor level in this space results in a higher ceiling, which NWDS took advantage of by extending a mural the full height behind a wall-mounted shoe display.
A staircase at the very back leads to the upper storey, where retail displays and office areas for store employees sit side by side, and a photography studio is in full view.
“Inside Tons, the client space and the workspace are blended,” said NWDS.
“Buyers and managers have their work desks right next to the sale rails on the first floor, and store visitors are welcome to take a peek at the fashion photo shoot happening right there at Tons.”
The unfinished aesthetic continues across the upper storey, where retail and offices spaces are blended
Throughout the store are a selection of iconic furniture pieces that continue the theme of unexpected materials and functionality.
They include metal-mesh Hi Tech armchairs by Piero Lissoni, a Mate chair by (A+B) Dominoni, Quaquaro that doubles as shelving, and Frank Gehry‘s compressed cardboard Wiggle Chair for Vitra.
“An interior comprising modest materials is a backdrop for high-end Italian furniture pieces, a collection carefully curated by the NWDS team,” said the designers.
An open photography studio allows shoppers to watch shoots as they happen
NWDS was established in 2013 as a team of architects, designers, curators and researchers from cities including New York, Tbilisi, Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Yerevan, Lisbon and Dubai. The group’s projects span residential, retail, hospitality, culture, exhibition design and more.
Other recently completed boutiques that feature unusual materials include the Boyy flagship in Milan, which reveals layers of the store’s history, and a Parisian jewellery store featuring rippled sheets of acrylic.
The photography is by Ekaterina Izmestieva and Alexandra Ribar.
Project credits:
Design concept: NWDS Supervision and project management: Brnz Bureau Lighting design: Natalia Markevich Art: Sasha Brodsky
