The continuing future of Fashion: The Eco Fabric YOU CAN BE Wearing In 10 Years

When actress Emma Watson launched her Instagram profile, The Press Tour, for the sole reason for highlighting ethical, sustainable fashion while promoting Magnificence and the Beast, it was wonderful seeing someone with such clout shine a light about how chic and beautiful sustainable fashion could be. As the second biggest environmental global and clean water polluter, the style industry, and the fabric used within, is significantly messing with this eco-system. Cotton, while being a healthy fiber, is thirsty AF- making just one single T-shirt can require more than 5,000 gallons of water. In addition practically 70 million barrels of essential oil are used each year to make polyester fiber, which takes a lot more than 200 years to decompose (yeah, you read that right) and which may be the mainstay fabric of fast vogue. 

The style carbon footprint is tremendous, no doubt. The question is: what exactly are we going to carry out about it? While the fact is quite grim, the most recent developments in in charge sourcing and rising eco-fashion recognition have already been inspiring. Environmental NGOs like Hong Kong’s very own Redress is actively attempting to reduce waste in the fashion industry. BYT, an inexpensive luxury up-cycled fashion company, uses simply sustainable and socially responsible source chains in Asia (among their main goals is by using discarded fabric from textile mills). Impressive designers are looking for more viable alternatives in the textile and fashion industry and so are turning food waste, pure sources, and raw materials into plant-based household leather alternatives that mirror the real thing. Bags and sneakers are being made out of pineapple leaves. Active wear and t-shirts have been constructed out of coffees! A variety of veggie leathers are being tested for industry viability. The continuing future of fashion is in our food (waste materials) and the affect to the clothing market and NATURE will be big. 

Made entirely from pineapple waste products (pineapple leaves, to end up being exact), the fibers out of this tropical fruit are tough and biodegradable, rendering it a great option to traditional leather. Produced by textile consultant Dr. Carmen Hijosa (who founded her socially-mindful textile startup Ananas Anam- at age 63 believe it or not), her business manufactures Piñatex, a forward thinking, natural and sustainable non-woven textile that uses zero extra land, normal water, fertilizers or pesticides for production. Soft like the textured household leather we are used to seeing, Piñatex is certainly light, breathable and comfortable, making it an excellent material for footwear, manner, and furnishings.

Since inception, Piñatex has been used to create luxury shoes and hand bags to wonderful fanfare. Bourgeois Boheme, a vegan sneakers brand located in London reinvents British shoe classics like oxfords and loafers (and a cute pair of Felicity Piñatex slip-on sandals!) using eco-friendly vegan items, clear of animal-derived materials. Polish high end handbag brand, Alexandra K, as well uses Piñatex within their simple and elegant vegan hand bags and accessories.

Coffee is the second most sought-after commodity in the world (with crude oil to arrive first), so you can only imagine just how many ground coffees are tossed away mindlessly found in the global multi-billion industry that's coffee cup building & serving. But also for the last 10 years, Taiwanese enterprise Singtex, has been producing big waves in the textile environment turning leftover espresso grounds into sustainable cloth. Collecting roasted coffee waste from coffee outlets and cafes around Taiwan (free of charge!), they mix it with recycled normal water bottles and the blend becomes espresso yarn, which is then used to produce fabric. The result can be an eco-friendly, high-tech fabric that is fast drying, UV-resilient, and deodorizing…and so that it is ideal for active-wear.

Companies like Sundried, a UK-based athletic brand, features designed a new range of sportswear made entirely from used coffee grounds found in Portugal and Italy. Working with The Low Carbon Innovation Fund to ensure the firm minimizes their carbon footprint, Sundried is normally actively tested by leading athletes around the world.

A new kind of leather grown out of mushrooms, MuSkin (aka mushroom pores and skin) is manufactured out of the tops of Phellinus ellipsoideus mushrooms and tanned (similar to traditional set) naturally without needing any toxic chemicals, rendering it ideal for items that come into direct contact with pores and skin such as shoes, bags watching straps. Produced by Italian textile company Grado Zero Espace, the procedure generates a materials that resembles suede fabric, but is certainly softer, breathable and with the capability to absorb moisture, just like regular fabric. More than in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, MycoWorks is a creative workforce of engineers, designers and scientists working to grow leather from mycelium, the vegetative portion (or skin area) of a fungus. By developing the spores under different temperature ranges and humidity, and tanning the “skin,” they are able to make household leather that simulate cow, snake, and ostrich hide. With a substantially smaller environmental footprint than conventional cow leather, mushroom household leather is biodegradable and necessitates much less energy.

Neither MuSkin or MycoWorks is usually in the marketplace yet, though we've high hopes for both.

One of the newer (very new) eco-friendly vegetable leathers out there is soybean leather. XXLab, an all-female collective located in Indonesia can be actively researching alternative methods to utilize soybean waste material (as a byproduct of tofu and tempeh development) that will be polluting their waters: they boil the liquid leftovers for ten days and nights with vinegar, sugars, fertilizer and bacteria until it becomes microbial cellulose (trusted in the traditional Filipino dessert nata de coco). After drying it, the outcome is a sustainable, vegan cloth with a zero waste products ethic that can be utilized to create shoes, bags and wallets.

Soybean leather products aren't yet in the marketplace but we see enormous potential from these zero waste products ladies.