Second skin: textiles grown to fit

Hemmings, Jessica (2006) Second skin: textiles grown to fit. Crafts, (199).

Abstract

Fashion’s newest material of choice isn’t one we have seen much of before, at least not on the catwalk. From Donna Franklin’s red silk and fungi dress designed and grown during a residency at Symbiotica in Perth, Western Australia to the bone cell wedding rings grown to measure by the biojewellery project in London, couture may finally be witnessing its twilight. It will be replaced by no less discerning a costumer, just one that happens to think that clothes and accessories grown to size are a sensible thing. Tobie Kerridge and Nikki Stott, design researchers at the Royal College of Art, and Ian Thompson, a bioengineer at Kings College London explain that biojewellery’s “aim is to bring the medical and technical processes of bioengineering out of the lab and into the public arena.” In the process, volunteers harvest their own bone cells to “grow” wedding bands for each other, giving a whole new meaning to material union. On the other side of the globe, Tissue Culture and Art’s “Victimless Leather” project suggests that the future of the garment could lie in one grown to measure from cells, rather than woven and stitched from cloth. And Suzanne Lee, author of Fashioning the Future is currently collaborating with the material scientist David Hepworth, on a research project to investigate grown materials as alternative textiles. Why? Asking our clothing to change, rather than fashion’s ongoing demand that we change our clothing is, Lee asserts, “a logical conclusion to fashion’s pace.” Curiously, while single step production for garments may be our future, a garment without seams, stitches or cloth would herald the end of crafts such as weaving and tailoring. Eventually, such developments could be responsible for the extinction of a species already on the endangered list: the craftsperson.

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Download statistics