All I know is it better have pockets because a dress without pockets is worthless
Let’s be real, judging from the picture of the dress, I think they made the dress because it was impractical to do anything else than basically a poncho. I suspect there are strong limitations in terms of how you can arrange and sew things like pockets.
I see it more like a proof of concept for a new sort of textiles, not necessarily everyday clothes, but things like disposable hygienic clothes.
I looked through the article to figure out exactly how they constructed it. It’s still stitched, which is good for being able to use our existing tools and skillsets to work with this new material. I was worried it would be a case of needing to grow each piece of clothing entirely in one piece. Still, since it’s not woven or knit, it would probably be more akin to working with felt or suede. It wouldn’t have the same characteristics as the fabrics we’re used to designing clothes for.
I do wonder how it would hold up for things like pads and diapers, I hadn’t considered that. Humidity seemed to play a big role in how the fabric behaves, so an excess of it might just make it fall apart. Currently, there is also still a plastic backing to absorbent hygiene products to stop things leaking through, so that would also need a biodegradable solution.
I’m curious if, instead of incorporating pigment producing microbes, they could incorporate something akin to dehydrated sphagnum moss… But I’m just spitballing now, I’m a sewist, not a materials researcher.
I got a dress with pockets the other day. I bought it specifically because it has pockets. Its not my style aesthetically but its my style functionally!
Sadly its made of the sort of fabric that hangs heavy and stretches nicely (a type of fabric I actually love), probably a 4-way knit with spandex blend, which means if I use the pockets for much of anything, it pulls down and looks not great because it clings to every single bit of body under it
Still, good place for hands to go so I can show off that it has pockets!!! 😜
Yes! I have a couple of those, the super stretchy material that doesn’t hold shape. I usually wear them around the house, those pockets are good for holding a lighter or other bits and bobs I keep on hand when I’m home.
I love showing off my dress pockets too! lol
“Eat my shorts”
Very cool. I love that they didn’t pull punches with the dress design
Hmm… if it’s alive, how do you wash it? Or do you just water it and let it eat your dead skin and body oils as nutrients…?
I don’t think I like that at all.
(And yes I did read… about half of this, and skimmed the rest looking for an answer. It’s only about how it works and how it’s made, i don’t think they considered that practicality at all for this research)
There is a bit about glycerol-plasticization and the chemical solvent resistance resulting, but I’m not really sure how well that translates to household clothes washing, nor the mechanical stresses involved.
Briefly addressed in the discussion:
Rather than targeting long-lifetime wearable garments, these materials are more naturally suited to short-term or single-use textile-like systems where environmental sustainability is prioritized. Representative use contexts include biodegradable packaging, temporary exhibition or artistic textiles, and architectural display installations, settings in which conventional materials often persist environmentally despite brief functional lifetimes.
In the context of living textiles, additional metrics such as washability, abrasion resistance, breathability, and wearer comfort have not yet been systematically evaluated and will require further co-optimization of biological and material parameters for practical translation.
This is very cool. I wish they had more images of the type of textiles that could be created with this.
