“Fashion and sustainability have to now be one. You have to be thinking in different ways,” student Andrew Bell tells Reuters. “Fashion has been doing the same thing for so long, we’ve created the same black top and the same black jeans and we’re constantly calling them new…there’s actually nothing new about these items.”
For example, Margot Vaaderpass made tops, coats, trousers and skirts from pineapple leather with biodegradable buttons for the show, and Piero D’Angelo is working on a process to grow garments by introducing fast-growing slime to pre-made patterns. “We designed a 3D printed prototype … Once we apply the slime mold it will just grow, spread all over, connecting each of those holes,” he adds. “I am fascinated by the idea of growing garments and working with different materials, like living materials but also pushing further the idea of fashion.”