Both technology and science are helping to transform fashion from unsustainable to on-demand

We know that Australians are the second largest consumers of textiles in the world (The US has the dubious honor of first place), and that each year, we each buy about 27 kilograms of new clothing – only to throw away 23 to 31 kilograms of it, depending on who you ask.

These statistics are given so often that they risk becoming meaningless, but they are anything but.

What these numbers represented visually were mountains of clothes, many worn less than seven times, thrown over large areas of acres. In some parts of the world, farmers are even able to predict the next fashion season’s “it” color from the hue of their rivers, unnaturally colored by dyes leached from the textile industry.

As with many industries, some of the answers (but not all – brands and consumers have to make some uncomfortable decisions too) lie with fashion adopting technological and science-based solutions to some of its most wasteful and unsustainable practices. .

Pete Smit, founder and CEO of StyleAtlas – an Australian startup that’s using 3D technology to replace the traditional model of making sample garments – says most waste in fashion happens in those early stages of production, where the receiving part happens of samples.

Making simpler samples

It works like this: a designer comes up with an idea for, say, a dress. They sketch it out, figure out what fabric they want to use and any other decorative features they want to include (buttons, zippers, stitching, stitching etc). Then they put together something called a “technology package” (short for technical package), a document used to communicate product requirements to manufacturers. A technology package usually includes a sketch, dimensional specification, materials, trim, artwork, colors, construction information, and labeling.

“The technology package is sent to the manufacturer, which is sometimes local but more often overseas, from which the garment will be built and returned to the brand,” explains Smit. “The brand will then fit a person, make notes and adjustments and send it back to the manufacturer.”

This process is usually repeated up to four times before the brand is signed – four times in a row between Australia and China or Bangladesh (where most Australian clothes are made). Each trip lasts between three and six weeks.

“So many samples are made even before the bulk order [from retailers] – This process has massive financial, time and sustainability costs for the brand and for the planet,” says Smit.

What he proposes is that brands, instead of doing it physically, do it through software.

“We’ve created a product called Quadrant that follows a traditional process, but virtually,” he says. “This means designers can create a pattern, stitch it together virtually and fit it into an avatar whose measurements are based on an actual fit pattern. Then, you can make adjustments to the part as you would traditionally.”

Read more: What you need to know about fast fashion

Smit says that just like in real life, the 3D process requires different players: one to digitize the fabrics so that they flow and move just like in real life; another to enable the creation of models and customization of avatars.

Not only does virtual model making require the same skills as traditional model making, it involves broader digital skills that can be used in other industries.

But for many fashion brands, the idea of ​​using 3D to make clothing prototypes is still frowned upon. While big fashion companies like PVH (which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger) can afford to spend time and money training existing employees or hiring new ones, Smit says smaller players are scared off by the perceived cost of incorporating new technology into their design processes. .

That’s why Style Atlas – along with other digital tech fashion startups like Bandicoot, Couture Cad, Ponz Studios, Neuno and ORDRE – decided to work with nine Australian fashion brands to show them the possibilities of 3D as part of the Australian Fashion Council’s FashTech. labs in April.

“We wanted to show businesses interested in using 3D how it works, [and] how it can save them time, money [and] the planet,” says Smith. “Technology alone will not get brands to adopt it; Most brands need a way to ‘dip their toe in the water’ and a strong business case to take back to their directors.

Fabric fiber from wine and food waste

Other companies are choosing to approach the problem from a different angle – finding a way to create one of the most widely used fibers – cellulose – in an environmentally friendly way.

From a sustainability perspective, cellulose – a form of carbohydrate that has a structural role in animals and plants, keeping them rigid and straight – is one of the best fibers to use. It is a biodegradable, renewable, biocompatible and affordable polymer (polymers are large molecules made up of small, repeating building blocks called monomers – a long string of sugar molecules in the case of cellulose), and while it is mainly obtained from plants and trees, it can also be produced by some bacteria, fungi and algae.

Instead of using wood pulp from trees – an intensive agricultural and chemical method that puts a lot of pressure on natural resources – the team of chemists at Perth-based startup Nanollose takes some by-product or waste from the agriculture industry, ferments it and turns it into rayon fibers, which have minimal environmental impact.

Nanollose chairman Wayne Best, a chemist and associate professor at the University of Western Australia, was running a contract lab in 2014 when Nanollose founder Gary Cass (who is no longer with the company) “walked into my office in a made of rotten wine.”

“He had filled the wine by getting rid of the oxygen in the vat, which turned into vinegar after it became infected with a natural bacteria, producing this scum on the surface,” Best recalled. The scale turned out to be cellulose, which, when dry, had a cotton-like appeal. This serendipitous discovery led to the creation of Nanollose, which to this day develops sustainable textiles derived from this type of bacteria.

Unlike extracting cellulose from trees – which requires pulping the wood, a highly polluting and energy-intensive process that separates the cellulose from the rest of the tree (cellulose makes up only 40% of a plant) – Wayne says the bacteria are just grown and that’s all. “Pure, beautiful and clean” pulp.

At first, the company launched a basic jumper made from its Nullarbor lyocell fiber (a type of rayon), which it spun into a thread before inserting it into the T-shirt using 3D knitting technology. While successful, Wayne soon realized that for the fashion world to adopt their fabric, they would have to showcase its potential in a more fashionable way.

“So we hired a fashion consultant who has a long history of working in the industry to help us figure out how to appeal to that sector – I’m no fashion guru myself,” Wayne says with a laugh.

And it worked: Nanollese has since teamed up with Australian luxury designer Lee Matthews (as well as man-made cellulose fiber manufacturer Birla Cellulose) to unveil its world-first garment at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen in June.

Read more: From fashion consciousness: the psychology of what we buy

The company is now working on developing a sustainable alternative to leather, which Wayne says is looking good in the lab, but has some time to go before it becomes viable. “Leather is a big market; there are a lot of people out there who want the vegan lifestyle, but while vegan leather may be animal-free, it’s full of plastic,” he says.

Another big issue is scale. While Wayne is keen to say that Nullarbor fiber will replace less sustainable tree-based cellulose, the company will need to find a way to produce “100 million tonnes of fibre” – what the fashion industry now uses – for competed.

“We’re nowhere near that scale,” he says. “When you are a small company and you want to come up with a new technology, your products will be more expensive. Wood pulp has been around for over a hundred years – it’s hard for any new technology to compete at that cost.

“The elephant in the room here is that the fashion industry says it wants to become more sustainable while also continuing to increase sales without reducing consumption.”

The model is broken

Here’s the crux of the matter: the “business as usual” mindset of many apparel manufacturers and retailers is perhaps the most significant obstacle to transforming the world’s second-most polluting industry, and until this is addressed, no technology will I would fix it.

“Everyone throughout the apparel lifecycle and supply chain needs to adopt a strong and authentic ‘product stewardship’ approach,” says John Gertsakis, director of the Center of Excellence for Product Stewardship, based at the University of Technology in Sydney.

“Everyone involved in the design, manufacture, import and sale of products has a responsibility to ensure that clothing is managed in a way that reduces its environmental and human health impacts.”

Gertsakis, a long-time advocate of the circular economy and sustainable product design, believes that the current fashion business model works against sustainability, reuse, repair and extending the life of clothing. “Fast fashion and sales-driven marketing is itself one of the most challenging obstacles to improving the environmental and social outcomes of clothing production.”

Smit, who has also been in the fashion game for a while, agrees.

“Ultimately, the fashion industry’s biggest issue is that its dominant business model, built around high inventory and low unit cost, is broken,” he says. “The result is a perfect storm of massive environmental damage, combined with a lack of commercial viability for many brands.”

Writer Caroline Zielinski’s next story — about how science and technology are solving the challenges of fashion and textile recycling — will appear in a future Kosmos Weekly.