In Tokyo, designer Hiroto Ikebe is exhibiting clothing made from rewoven silk cocoon waste at the DESIGNART Tokyo event. Though not used for mass production, Ikebe intends for the COCOON ANATOMY exhibit to show that silk industry waste can be repurposed into a usable, leather-like textile.
The waste material specifically included raw, unprocessed silk; kibiso, the rough outer layer of silk thread; and degara cocoons, which aren’t ideal for traditional silk but still have usable fibers.
The exhibit includes a dress and headspace. “Hiroto Ikebe hopes that by modernizing sericulture, a practice that’s in decline in Japan according to the designer, the silk cocoon waste gets a second life and is no longer just discarded,” according to design publication designboom.