Fashion students at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology (QUT) are using a brand new approach to making clothing materials, a sustainable material, and recently presented their research results to the media.
This is a fermentation process similar to beer brewing or making yeast dough. The yeast medium is placed in a petri dish and cultivated to form a curd-like substance, which will form a new clothing material.
In a laboratory at the Queensland State Library, Queensland University of Technology students experimented with coffee, tea, red wine and syrup. Dean Brough, a lecturer in his own fashion studio, said that the production process is both fashionable and forward-looking.
He said: “This process is scary and a little disgusting. The yeast medium is wet and sticky, and the smell can be very pungent, but when this material is made into clothes, it will be very exciting.”
Whether it is tea, coffee, red wine or syrup, it can be used as the “food” of the yeast culture medium, and the materials obtained after each different “food” have different characteristics.
Braff said that the texture of the clothing material formed through the fermentation process is close to the skin. After a week of drying process, the water is evaporated and the material itself becomes thinner. Despite this, the material remained intact after the students ransacked it in a washing machine, proving that the material is a very strong fiber product.
Alice Payne, a lecturer at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, said students experimented with new materials, such as color-spraying yeast media or dyeing culture media.
Braff said that the smell emitted during this process is very similar to the smell of beer fermentation. Although the taste is not good, the final result is like a drink after drinking, and the finished product has no peculiar smell. Brough said that the traditional clothing industry wastes 20% to 39% of fibers in the process of making clothing from fiber materials.
A student at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology’s Lost Master Technology said she was very fascinated by the job of working with such a living clothing material. The school will have clothing made from the material on display at The Edge until the end of October.
Extended reading: https://www.yingjietex .com/product/Polyester-Three-Color-Scalariform-Lateral-Cut-OXFORD-Fabric.html
Extended reading:https://www.tpu-ptfe.com/post/7.html
Extended reading: https://www.tpu-ptfe.com/post/7720.html
Extended reading:https://www.yingjietex.com/product/Satin-Jacquard-with-rose-flower-Fabric.html
Extended reading ：https://www.alltextile.cn/product/product-68-740.htm
