Fashion, Technology & Sustainability: A Combined Effort to Save the Environment

The worlds of fashion, technology and sustainability haven’t been friends for long – but they are now growing and developing together, which is resulting in some extraordinary innovations. Some of which are making our lives easier and healthier, while others are even attempting to solve the problems caused by the fashion industry for our planet.

Text Björn Lüdtke

Not too long ago, people from the worlds of fashion, sustainability and technology regarded each other as different species with different priorities. But that is changing. Younger generations in particular are taking a closer look at what we are doing to our planet. They are starting to understand the concept of equity as a form of responsibility towards future generations. In addition, technology is becoming increasingly important in our lives and, inevitably, in fashion. Above all the tech train is picking up speed. But what is the status quo when it comes to technology and sustainability in fashion? What is happening now and what might happen in the future? Fashiontech is widely associated with wearables, gadgets and dresses with flashing lights. But “a flashing dress is a one-trick pony,” says Thomas Gnahm, CEO and founder of the Wear It Festival in Berlin that revolves around wearable fashion. “Wearables should be fun, but the technology needs to be in place and work. No touchscreens, nothing that pops up – that’s old-school.” Remember Google Glasses? Even über-cool Diane von Fürstenberg couldn’t make them look hot. Priti Moudgill is a co-founder of the start-up company Peripherii. “Consumers will reject great technology if it comes at a high social cost.” And by social cost she means the ridicule you have to suffer when wearing a gadget that simply looks ridiculous. That is why they came up with a hearable (makes phone calls or whispers alerts) that looks like a fashionable earring rather than a piece of tech.

Customers are starting to demand stylish tech. The latest models of the Snapchat spectacles look more refined than the earlier ones. Or take the soon to be launched Sakhi, a smart bracelet that features the usual fitness tracker, a kid tracker or Alexa voice commands. What makes it special is that it respects the customers’ desire for more fashionable wearables. It can be customised with beads and charms from other brands such as Pandora.

One of the major problems for wearables is where they source their power. They need to be small and light to make sense and be fun to wear. On the other hand, the energy supply needs to last as long as possible. From smartphones we know that this is a contradiction. Matrix Industries have introduced the PowerWatch, which is powered by thermoelectric energy harvesting, a system that basically generates energy from the difference between the body temperature and the back of the watch. The bigger the difference, the more energy can be harvested. The Power-Watch never needs to be charged.

We are surrounded by textiles. We wear them all day, most of us at night and even if you sleep naked, you’ll likely be covered by sheets. So why not make them smart and let them give us support for an easier and healthier life? Like the yoga pants by Wearable X with sensors that identify the pose you’re in and will give you tangible feedback on what part of your body you should focus on, “just like a yoga teacher, providing a touch of pressure”. Or the T-shirt from Cardioskin (currently under development) that can help to protect people from having a stroke. And the new underwear called Carin for women suffering from the onset of incontinence, which helps them to achieve pelvic floor strength in order to eliminate leakage.

Emel + Aris is a London-based label that was founded in 2015 “to create luxury fashion staples enhanced by cutting-edge technology” – fashiontech that fits in with the contemporary wardrobe of the modern-day businesswoman or man. Their smart coats are heated by FIR (far infrared) which doesn’t just heat surfaces like wired heating, the heat is also absorbed by the body and warms the muscles. According to Emel + Aris, FIR is the healthiest type of heat on the spectrum and has long been associated with wellbeing – it reduces pain, increases muscle flexibility, stimulates and apparently helps to detoxify. And even if you don’t believe any of that, it’ll still keep you warm.

So wearables are fun and increasingly stylish and smart textiles help us live a better life. But what we really want to know is: how can new technologies be used to make the world a better place? We have all heard it so many times before: the fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world. Let’s save ourselves the details, but the bottom line is: we’re pigs. And even though we’re talking about it all the time, only a fragment of clothes are sustainable, or upcycled, or whatever it is that we need to do to save resources.

It's important to share knowledge and learn from each other to speed up the sustainability process and to create solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts

The problem is that you won’t be able to change an entire industry overnight with structures and processes that have evolved since industrialisation. Every part of the supply and value chain needs to be rewired and there is still a lot to be done. The good news? There are plenty of people out there who want to make a change.

The denim industry is known for being particularly dirty. Özge Özsoy is head of marketing at Turkish denim manufacturer Bossa and had the following to say on the topic: “Textile processing has a very high water and energy consumption, and a large amount of wastewater discharge. However, the industry works hard to achieve a balance between economic development and environmental protection. Conservation of water resources and the environment have become key issues of concern in textile manufacturing. At Bossa we are still working on sustainable concepts. For the SS20 collection we are aiming at 100 percent sustainable denim, which we call Future Denim – by combining sustainable fibres and dyeing techniques we are creating the denim of the future.”

At Kilimdenim, measures are also being taken to become cleaner. In the words of Dilek Erik: “One of our ongoing projects right now is to forgo sodium dithionite in the indigo dyeing process. With the help of this project, the amount of sulphate salt accumulated in wastewater and released into the environment will be brought to zero. That means we don’t add toxic waste to the nature that surrounds us. This practice started with the fabrics manufactured for G-Star and will be introduced in Kilimdenim’s SS20 collections. Another important project is to replace the starch that is produced during the sizing of the fibre, which also pollutes the environment. Instead, we plan to use a chemical that is produced on our premises. This project will reduce the pollution and the amount of water used will also be decreased by 50 percent.”

Recycling is another option in making denim and its production greener. Candiani is considered to be one of the most sustainable denim manufacturers. Its marketing manager MaryKate Kelley, says: “At Candiani recycling is a priority. 100 percent of our waste from the spinning, dyeing and weaving process is recycled: 50 percent is re-spun into yarn and the other 50 percent is upcycled into insulation for housing and cars. In addition, Candiani uses its re-spun yarns to create its GRS-approved denim line with our recycled yarn range.”

Critics say that recycling only solves parts of the problem because further resources such as fuel for transport are being used. Ecoalf, a brand with its headquarters in Madrid, is reacting to this. One of their products, the Shao sneaker, is made completely out of plastic sourced from the ocean. The idea is to waste as little as possible in terms of extra resources. The plastic waste, including old fishing nets, is collected by fishermen who are going out to sea anyway. The plastic they bring back is broken down in smaller pieces and then processed into yarn in sites close to the ports. Javier Goyeneche is the president and founder of Ecoalf. He says that it takes 17 chemical steps to get from petrol to a comparable non-recycled synthetic. From an old fishing net to the recycled fabric they use at Ecoalf it takes only take seven steps.

Upcycling describes the process of the transformation of by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value. This can happen in a small backyard studio where designers turn second-hand clothes into new, more fashionable garments. Or take the Mimycri project, for example, that turns broken rubber boats from refugees into high-quality bags and backpacks – employing the refugees and sharing the profits in the process.

Raw materials that are available in nature in abundance and re-grow quickly, like nettles or algae, are also becoming increasingly popular. You can even use milk as a basis to make textile filaments. Even more popular: raw materials that are by-products (and do not compete with the cultivation of crops). Dutch designer Billie van Katwijk uses cow stomachs for the handbags of her label Ventri; meanwhile Israeli designer Sahara Liane uses animal blood as a dye. Admittedly, these projects lean more towards the experimental. Using coffee grounds and banana plants as a basis for fibres is a more commercial approach. Orange Fiber is an Italian start-up that generates fibre from citrus-juice by-products. Their first client was Salvatore Ferragamo who used the material to make a capsule collection. At Bolt Threads in California, bioengineering is used to produce a fibre that resembles silk in its feel and durability, using yeast, sugar and water. The project is still in the R&D phase but Stella McCartney has already used prototypes for selected pieces of her collection. Modern Meadow is another biotech start-up in New Jersey that grows animal-free leather in a lab. It’s called Zoa, looks and performs like leather (and on a biological level it is leather) but is created through a process of DNA editing that grows collagen from yeast. It can be grown to mimic any kind of leather – from calfskin to alligator. Zoa starts as a liquid and thus offers whole new opportunities when it comes to designing, in comparison to the limitations of pieces of cowhide. The first products are planned for 2019.

And what if we could use a material that we basically want to get rid of anyway? 10xBeta call themselves a “product design and engineering firm working in robotics, mobility, consumer electronics, medical devices and the internet of things.” One of their projects is “the shoe without a footprint”, where they literally invented “a shoe out of thin air”, made of a polyurethane that in turn is gained from CO² (it’s still a prototype).

The goal? A circular economy. But how does that work in practice? Just look at nature – and try to leave mankind out of the equation. Nothing ever goes to waste. Large animals eat small animals. Whatever goes into their mouths comes out of the other end, functioning as fertiliser for the soil in which plants grow – which in turn get eaten by other animals, pollinated by bees… and so on. It would be a perfect system if only it weren’t for us human beings. Our economy is linear. We produce, we consume, we discard. The result: landfill.

Which is a problem Reebok is trying to tackle. Since autumn 2018 the sports brand has been selling almost completely biodegradable sneakers. The idea behind it is that even if you recycle plastic, it’s still plastic and you’re not getting rid of the problem. The goal is therefore to remove rubber and plastic and replace them with natural resources that grow back, like corn. Their “Cotton + Corn” sneakers are made of 100 percent cotton uppers and a bio-based sole from a cornbased plastic substitute. They have an insole made of castor bean oil, the fabrics that make up the shoe are undyed, and the packaging that the shoe comes in is made from recycled materials. Soon, it will not only be the materials that we actually wear on our skin that will cover us. There will also be a digital layer. Clothes already communicate who you are – or who you want to be. Whatever the Hololens from Microsoft can do might soon be integrated in your regular spectacle frames with information being displayed on the inside. It will no longer be a disruption – it will be integrated into what you do. What you wear physically might not matter as much as what will be perceived by others. You might not be wearing your heart on your sleeve, but your Twitter, Facebook or Instagram will be fully visible. Different people might be seeing different things, depending on who looks at you: your boss (sees a responsible adult) your partner (sees someone ready for a night out on the tiles). With textiles becoming more or less obsolete in this scenario, would this be the most sustainable solution of them all?

Technology is changing at an exponential rate but organisations that ought to adapt do not change at the same speed. To keep this planet a place worth living, it is vital that developments in fashion, technology and sustainability go hand in hand. As we have already seen, it’s a puzzle – an invention to save water here, new biodegradable materials there. It’s important to share knowledge and learn from each other to speed up the process and to create solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts.