TEXTILES.ORG
In August, Specialty Fabrics Review shared a story about a living photosynthetic textile coating; next up is a living bioluminescent dress.
Dutch fashion designer and sculptor Iris Van Herpen recently collaborated with bio-designer Chris Bellamy on creating a dress incorporating 125 million bioluminescent algae. The organisms emit light as a defense mechanism in response to movement.
To create the dress, the algae were grown in seawater baths for several months within a nutrient gel, which was molded into a protective membrane. The material was kept in carefully controlled conditions to mimic the algae’s natural ocean habitat, with attention to humidity, temperature, light colors and their circadian rhythms. The molded pieces were hand-sewn onto Japanese air fabric to create the dress.
Bellamy has collaborated with biophysicists from the University of Amsterdam who have been studying Pyrocystis lunula algae. In their research, they created a gel matrix where the organisms could be kept alive outside of water. In collaboration with Van Herpen, Bellamy further refined the material.
The dress was part of a larger collection of 17 dresses shown during Paris Haute Couture Week in July. The theme was the Gaia hypothesis, how the ocean ecosystem is interconnected with the atmosphere and climate of the planet overall.