September biotextile round-up: couture, dye, and living textiles

Couture goes bio, plus two early-stage studies rethinking dye and materials.

Here are a few things that caught our eye this month.

AMSilk's bioengineered yarn walks the runway

A dress in Balenciaga’s 55th Couture Collection was made with an AMSilk-blend fabric. The German biotech company produces silk proteins inspired by spider silk using precision fermentation, then wet-spins the proteins into filaments that can be processed using conventional textile equipment. We always love seeing biotechnology appearing in an actual product!

Four o'clock flowers dye cotton without metal

Natural dyes get a lot of attention, but dye is only part of the environmental problem. The color needs to stay on the fabrics, and typically, dyes are fixed to fabrics using mordants, many of which contain metals. This means that switching to a plant-derived dye doesn’t necessarily eliminate the environmental concerns associated with the dyeing process.

A new study explored a completely metal-free system for dyeing cotton using pigment from Mirabilis jalapa flowers using a range of bio-based mordants. The choice of mordant made a big difference. Pomegranate peel produced the strongest color, and the fabrics generally performed well in tests, although lightfastness remained limited.

A textile that regenerates itself

Researchers in China developed a mycelium textile with an unusual feature: it's alive. The material is made from Cordyceps militaris mycelium grown in liquid culture, then formed into flexible sheets that can be folded, cut, and sewn. The material can regenerate after damage, and even showed self-cleaning behavior.

Both of these stories are still at the early research stage, but they’re fun examples of what could be coming next, and they remind us of how much room there is to rethink everything about how we make clothes.