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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 with might and main 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, users of video games have been buying items for real money, including clothes, that they can never 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 do this as well, as a rule, also for PR.
People often buy flashy items to take a one-time Instagram photo, which leads to overconsumption and more garbage.
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.
Another plus of digital clothing for those who like to stand out: it can violate 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 it is a fleeting trend or now it is with us forever.
Fabrics with silver nanoparticles
The idea of using silver in textile production 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 made of 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 that produce not only household and medical textiles with silver, but also clothing - usually sportswear.
Silver fabrics have other useful properties: they better retain heat and can even be heated by an electric discharge that is safe for humans, and also protect against electromagnetic radiation.
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 from such textiles, in addition to medical and sportswear, socks are produced that treat foot fungus, and wallpapers that protect houses from electromagnetic radiation. But in the future, it will be possible to sew everyday clothes from fabric with silver, and its individual parts, for example, pockets that protect smartphones from data theft.
In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, protection against bacteria and infections may become more relevant, and fabrics with silver fibers could help address this issue.
The most famous companies producing textiles with silver and other metals:
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 when pressed and stretched (such materials are calledpiezoelectric). The current is generated more efficiently when the threads are wet, which means this technology should work especially well in sportswear.
Anya Lund says that piezoelectric fabrics can be used to sew whole clothing and its 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 closely at 3D printing, but the future of these initiatives is uncertain.
Now the question is not even how to use this technology for the manufacture of clothing and accessories (this is already a reality).
Scientists want to make 3D printing on a mass scale so that everyone can independently print the clothes they want to wear for themselves.
Other natural fabrics
Now humanity has 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 the sake of fashion weeks. The production of textiles 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 recycled ones (for example, from plastic containers).
Another popular type of fabric is cotton, which is loved for its naturalness and cheapness. 40% of all clothing produced in the world is made from it. The problem is that cotton is often grown using pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals that emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and increase global warming.
In addition, growing cotton requires a huge amount of water: about 2,700 liters per T-shirt. This dries up natural reservoirs.
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 nettle fibers can replace less environmentally friendly cotton.
Chances are good that in a couple of decades our cheap mass-market T-shirts (if they continue to exist) will be made from nettles.
The nettle fiber fabric was made in Korea a couple of millennia ago and was worn by wealthy people in the region. In some European countries, similar clothes were also made. 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 the London Fashion Week collection shows the duo, with the creation of which used the plants from the garden of the royal Prince Charles. 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.
Another possible substitute for cotton is textiles made from proteins (usually expired milk). This fabric is called milk cotton, although it feels more like silk.
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.
Antonella Bellina shows how milk cotton is made
Simultaneously with the Italians, the German microbiologist and designer Anke Domaske launched her milk cotton clothing brand Qmilk. Domaske says that this fabric became an outlet for her family: when one of her relatives got cancer, he became allergic to almost all existing types of textiles. The fabric made from expired milk simultaneously solves the problems 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. It is not surprising that Orange Fiber appeared in Italy, where 700 thousand 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. There is a similar development in Italy -muskin from Grado Zero Espace.
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:
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 clothes so that they remain comfortable at the same time. Running shorts may soon be reading your heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure.
The Canadian company Myant is currently embedding the sensors only in the fabric of underwear, but plans to use more technologies 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.
One of Interactive Wear's customers is outdoor clothing brand Bogner, which made washable, illuminated, heated ski jackets.
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.
The ventilation system looks like triangular latex petals, covered with a layer of bacteria on both sides.
In 2019, London College of Fashion alumnus Rosie Broadhead and microbiologist Christopher Colvert introduced garments that contain probiotics. According to the designer, they reduce sweat odor, promote skin cell renewal and enhance immunity.
American Suzanne Lee, founder of Bio Couture and senior fellow at the Central College of Fashion, is also working with bacteria . Saint Martin in London. She creates a skin-like material from a mixture of tea and bacteria - the same kombucha that makes a drink called kombucha.
This is still one of the most innovative ways to rethink fashion, and now it is difficult to say whether it will be possible to make such production on a mass scale.
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, users of video games have been buying items for real money, including clothes, that they can never 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 do this as well, as a rule, also for PR.
People often buy flashy items to take a one-time Instagram photo, which leads to overconsumption and more garbage.
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.
Another plus of digital clothing for those who like to stand out: it can violate 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 it is a fleeting trend or now it is with us forever.
Fabrics with silver nanoparticles
The idea of using silver in textile production 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 made of 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 that produce not only household and medical textiles with silver, but also clothing - usually sportswear.
Silver fabrics have other useful properties: they better retain heat and can even be heated by an electric discharge that is safe for humans, and also protect against electromagnetic radiation.
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 from such textiles, in addition to medical and sportswear, socks are produced that treat foot fungus, and wallpapers that protect houses from electromagnetic radiation. But in the future, it will be possible to sew everyday clothes from fabric with silver, and its individual parts, for example, pockets that protect smartphones from data theft.
In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, protection against bacteria and infections may become more relevant, and fabrics with silver fibers could help address this issue.
The most famous companies producing textiles with silver and other metals:
- Statex (Germany),
- Shieldex, its independent American division,
- sportswear brand Silvadur 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 when pressed and stretched (such materials are calledpiezoelectric). The current is generated more efficiently when the threads are wet, which means this technology should work especially well in sportswear.
Anya Lund says that piezoelectric fabrics can be used to sew whole clothing and its 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 closely at 3D printing, but the future of these initiatives is uncertain.
Now the question is not even how to use this technology for the manufacture of clothing and accessories (this is already a reality).
Scientists want to make 3D printing on a mass scale so that everyone can independently print the clothes they want to wear for themselves.
Other natural fabrics
Now humanity has 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 the sake of fashion weeks. The production of textiles 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 recycled ones (for example, from plastic containers).
Another popular type of fabric is cotton, which is loved for its naturalness and cheapness. 40% of all clothing produced in the world is made from it. The problem is that cotton is often grown using pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals that emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and increase global warming.
In addition, growing cotton requires a huge amount of water: about 2,700 liters per T-shirt. This dries up natural reservoirs.
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 nettle fibers can replace less environmentally friendly cotton.
Chances are good that in a couple of decades our cheap mass-market T-shirts (if they continue to exist) will be made from nettles.
The nettle fiber fabric was made in Korea a couple of millennia ago and was worn by wealthy people in the region. In some European countries, similar clothes were also made. 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 the London Fashion Week collection shows the duo, with the creation of which used the plants from the garden of the royal Prince Charles. 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.
Another possible substitute for cotton is textiles made from proteins (usually expired milk). This fabric is called milk cotton, although it feels more like silk.
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 this fabric became an outlet for her family: when one of her relatives got cancer, he became allergic to almost all existing types of textiles. The fabric made from expired milk simultaneously solves the problems 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. It is not surprising that Orange Fiber appeared in Italy, where 700 thousand 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. There is a similar development in Italy -muskin from Grado Zero Espace.
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 - animal husbandry 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 clothes so that they remain comfortable at the same time. Running shorts may soon be reading your heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure.
The Canadian company Myant is currently embedding the sensors only in the fabric of underwear, but plans to use more technologies 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.
One of Interactive Wear's customers is outdoor clothing brand Bogner, which made washable, illuminated, heated ski jackets.
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.
In 2019, London College of Fashion alumnus Rosie Broadhead and microbiologist Christopher Colvert introduced garments that contain probiotics. According to the designer, they reduce sweat odor, promote skin cell renewal and enhance immunity.
American Suzanne Lee, founder of Bio Couture and senior fellow at the Central College of Fashion, is also working with bacteria . Saint Martin in London. She creates a skin-like material from a mixture of tea and bacteria - the same kombucha that makes a drink called kombucha.
This is still one of the most innovative ways to rethink fashion, and now it is difficult to say whether it will be possible to make such production on a mass scale.
