Suzanne Lee, clothes farmer and senior research fellow in the School of Fashion/Textiles, Central Saint Martins, London, has discovered how to grow clothes from green tea, sugar and bacteria. Describing the process at a recent TED conference, Lee explains how she produces the sustainable fabric. “The bacteria feed on the sugar and spin fine threads of cellulose. As these start to stick together they form a skin on the liquids surface. After two to three weeks, when it is approximately 1.5cm thick, we remove the cellulose skin from the growth bath. We can then either use it wet to mold onto a 3D form, like a dress shape, or dry it flat and then cut and sew it into a garment.”
Using renewable materials has several environmental advantages, firstly sugar, bacteria and tea can be grown organically in many different climates and secondly, the end product can be composted into fertiliser for the next generation of crops,
in a cradle to cradle closed loop. A further advantage of the biocouture textile is that it can be dyed and printed easily, the hydrophilic nature of the cellulose material requires far less dye than other fibres, saving energy and toxic dyes. Lee has experimented with rust, indigo and vegetable dyes, to beautiful effect.
Fashion miles are also considered in this textile growing approach, Lees hopes that rather than shipping materials based on plants, animals, or petrochemicals to factories around the world, designers could make their own biomaterials close to their markets. Lee also hopes to eventually utilise waste from the food or beverage industry as feedstock for the microbial-cellulose process. “With so many environmental concerns related to the production, consumption and disposal of fashion textiles BioCouture is pioneering a new eco-friendly and sustainable alternative.”
Another reason Lee is fast becoming a sustainable fashion champion, is her ability to provoke discussion in differing media. Recently
in a conversation with The Atlantic she said: “I'm hoping that the consumer trend of asking about traceability with food will migrate to fashion and that all fashion brands will choose to sign up (and go beyond) global production standards like the
Ethical Trading Initiative .” She's also not scared to confront “I despise cheap, poor-quality, disposable fashion that exploits workers in poor parts of the world so that Western consumers can toss once-worn items into landfill. It's obscene.”
Working aesthetically with the intriguing skin-like textile, Lee has had her unusually beautiful garments selected for exhibition at the V & A Museum in London's
'Power of Making' and ModeMuseum Belgium's 'Alter Nature: The Future That Never Was' exhibition. She is also the author of ‘Fashioning The Future: tomorrow’s wardrobe’ published by Thames & Hudson.