Our favorite biotech and fashion summer highlights

Things move fast in biotech and fashion, and we wanted to make sure you caught some of the highlights from summer 2025. Here are five newsworthy moments and insights you might have missed.

The fungal source of Titian’s famous reds

Chemistry World: Researchers traced some of the vivid red colors used in Renaissance paintings to fungal origins. Beyond art history, this discovery could point to untapped microbial pathways for producing stable, high-value red dyes, something bio-dye startups could potentially engineer into scalable color producing platforms. Explore the story

Rahul Mishra has something to crow about

At Paris Spring Summer 2025 Haute Couture Week, Rahul Mishra displayed dresses decorated with life-like crows. While not exactly biotech, it’s a striking and beautiful example of how designers can draw inspiration from biology in ways that feel novel and unexpected. There is so much space to explore when biology and fashion intersect. View the collection

Iris van Herpen’s stunning Brewed Protein dress

Vogue Business: Iris van Herpen x Spiber, Brewed Protein Couture - Discussed the challenges of scaling microbial protein fibers with Spiber CEO Kazuhide Sekiyama, and why Iris van Herpen’s couture is an ideal showcase of the technology. The collection features a dress made from Spiber’s Brewed Protein™ fabric. Explore the story

Around the world in 80 fabrics

Biofabricate: Suzanne Lee in conversation with Tierney Thys and Carroll Dunham, discuss a project highlighting over 200 sustainable textiles across 45 countries, many rooted in indigenous practices and ecological stewardship. Watch the webinar

Fictional fabrics offer insights into our own fashionable future

Disney+ Andor: One of our favorite shows this summer was Andor. We were especially struck by the planet Ghorman, imagined around a fabric textile called Ghorman twill. Biotech fabrics often appear in sci-fi and fantasy, but they’re usually just presented as existing and ‘cool’. Here, the show built an entire culture and aesthetic around a fabric. It was beautiful to watch, and made us reflect on the influence textiles like cotton and silk have had on real-world cultures, and how biotech fabrics might shape society in ways we can’t predict. Watch on Disney+

What were your favorite bio-inspired fashion moments of the summer? Join us on LinkedIn or Instagram to let us know what we missed in this roundup.