Making fabric for the future
Two women from Singapore and Austria discuss making fabric from seaweed and nettles as well as clothes that shrink to fit or adapt to changing temperatures.
According to the UN, the fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global emissions. That's more than aviation and shipping combined. We talk to two women making climate-friendly clothes and developing innovative textiles in a bid to reduce the waste produced by fast fashion.
Regina Polanco is the founder and CEO of Pyratex, a textile company making fabrics from seaweed, nettles and orange peel for some of the biggest brands in fashion. Born in Vienna, she has also lived in Morocco, Mauritania and Switzerland but she returned to Spain, the country where she grew up, to found her company in 2014.
Sasha McKinlay grew up in Singapore and moved to the United States to study architecture. Now a design researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she's developing so-called 'active' textiles. They're essentially textiles with embedded functionality without the need for electronic inputs. These include materials that can be either warm or cool depending on the temperature, and garments that can be made in a single size and react to heat to fit the wearer or to be customised into new styles.
Produced by Jane Thurlow
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