Today we will take you on an excursion to the future and show you a project that explores the potential of luxury and bespoke bioengineering textile materials. As you see, we are really focussing on innovation when we talk textiles and this post somehow suits very well our SECOND SKIN trend we published a few days ago.
Amy Congdon is a designer and researcher and her particular interest lies in integrating textiles and textile engineering. The project imagines the kind of textiles, fabrics and materials we might be wearing in years to come and these images are part of Congdon’s Biological Atelier she developed as a part of her masters course at Central Saint Martins.
With her design project she is looking at a potential future for haute couture and fashion where we might grow luxury and bespoke materials, she explains. It’s not only the exotic mix of scales that draws us to her work, it is the philosophy behind behind her projects, that brings a new perspective to the textile industry!
Lorna Jane Newman Photography
Congdon had an insight on how tissue engineers work and how they are growing tissues and materials in the lab. She is very interested in the different hybrids that can be created in the lab, this is why her current research focuses on how she can makle these hybrids a reality.
Tissue engineering is a field of research which looks to grow replacement body parts or tissues working with skin and bone cells. Condone is trying to introduce these scientific achievements to her projects, she is interested in whether those materials, especially materials like leather or ivory, can be produced in such a way.
She points out the benefits of bioengineering materials: with textiles or tissues from the lab we could get materials, that do not exist in nature. For example ‚you could engineer specific properties into them. They could be water-repellent or can you engineer the color into them so you’re not having to dye them.‘ This way you could grow any material to any shape and you would not have any waste.
Just like her, we really could see biological engineered materials hit market in the next 10 to 15 years. We are living on a planet with finite resources and we really like her approach on how to find new ways to produce textiles and adopt these scientific possibilities so we might be able to produce new materials and products.
If you have not, I really recommend you take a look at our last trend post – interesting times lay ahead! G, x
