Memory quilts from upcycled T-shirts

April 1, 2020  |  Swatches

Sometimes, the idea for a new product comes about in an unexpected way. Take Project Repat, for example. Company cofounder Ross Lohr was stuck in a traffic jam in Nairobi, Kenya. After two hours, he discovered the jam was caused by an overturned produce rickshaw pushed by a man wearing a T-shirt tha…
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The Limitless Milk Shirt

April 1, 2020  |  Swatches

That memorable question, “Got milk?” takes on a whole new meaning in today’s technological marketplace. That’s because the Los Angeles-based startup Mi Terro is making the Limitless Milk Shirt, a T-shirt out of the white stuff. The motivation is sustainability. Each year, 128 million tons of…
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Fun and funky fabric murals

March 1, 2020  |  Swatches

The latest outpost of the cool, contemporary London restaurant Chotto Matte opened last year in Toronto, Ont., Canada. Known for Japanese-Peruvian fusion cuisine, the restaurant offers a playful dining experience with luxury bento boxes, signature cocktails, a robata grill and a sushi bar. The color…
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From Bauhaus to your house

March 1, 2020  |  Swatches

The Bauhaus was an art school founded in Germany in 1919 with a vision to reunite fine art and functional design in an increasingly industrialized world. Many female artists who attended the school were disappointed to find that the options available to them were the weaving shed and ceramics studio…
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Arc de Triomphe: it’s a wrap

March 1, 2020  |  Swatches

Christo, the artist known for environmental art installations, is returning to Paris for an exciting new project, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (Project for Paris, Place de l’Étoile-Charles de Gaulle). The idea was conceived 60 years ago when Christo lived in a small room near Arc de Triomphe. He …
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Technical textiles go bananas

March 1, 2020  |  Swatches

When designing a more sustainable future, sometimes the solution lies in unexpected places. That’s the idea behind Bananatex®, a durable, waterproof fabric made from banana plants.  The textile is derived from Abacá, also known as banana hemp, a member of the banana tree family. The brainchild …
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An exosuit for any gait

March 1, 2020  |  Swatches

When walking, a person’s center of mass is like a pendulum that is highest at midstance, when the leg is straight. The opposite happens when running. The body moves like a spring-mass system and is lowest at midstance when the hip, knee and ankle are flexed.  This reality of how the body works pr…
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Fabric frustrations for great white sharks

March 1, 2020  |  Swatches

While rare, shark bites can be a serious, dangerous reality for surfers and divers in some parts of the world. Shark bites classically are crescent shaped or result in a series of parallel cuts if the shark rakes its serrated triangular teeth on the person under attack. Blood loss is the leading cau…
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Over View: a 3D fabric ceiling

February 1, 2020  |  Swatches

Walk into the central lobby of MuseumLab, an experiential learning center for older children created by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, and look up. While you may think you’re looking at a historic leaded glass ceiling, you’re actually viewing a textile reproduction of the original 19th c…
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A jacket based on deep-sea evolution

February 1, 2020  |  Swatches

What can we learn from squids about developing advanced textiles? Quite a lot. The squid’s skin features a complex network of nerves that acts like an electric field, enabling the sea creature to change color and appearance in fractions of a second. A squid can camouflage itself to match its surro…
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