Future Fashion Expo features living garments and biobased textiles

In London, the recent Future Fashion Expo underscored the fashion industry’s push for sustainability, including fabrics made from renewable resources and living textiles that absorb carbon dioxide.

“Fashion is part of the problem but it’s also part of the solution,” Nina Marenzi, founder and director of the green textiles non-profit Sustainable Angle, tells The Guardian. “We begin with materials and making them sustainable, and if fashion supply chains can change, then we start to address that.”

Charlotte McCurdy, a New York designer, exhibited a bioplastic made from algae powder. Clothing made from the material actively withdraws carbon from the atmosphere.

Similarly, Dian-Jen Lin, co-founder of start-up Post Carbon Lab, featured her Euglena Print Jacket that uses photosynthetic organisms to convert CO₂ into oxygen. The handwash-only clothing can’t be left in dark places for long, however, as the algae would die.

The exhibits also included articles of clothing made from pineapple waste, cactus leaves, banana leaves, mushrooms, and algae.