Wide width shade mesh for zip blinds
January 1, 2022 | Products
Serge Ferrari’s Soltis® Veozip shade mesh for outdoor zipper blinds combines quality and long-term performance with a textile look and feel. The fabric’s natural hemp fiber composition is woven with three different colored yarns to give it a tone-on-tone aesthetic that matches all standard alum…
Mushroom-based leather
January 1, 2022 | Swatches
MycoWorks, a California-based biotech company, has created an eco-friendly, vegan leather derived from mushrooms. The leather turns mycelium, the microscopic, root-like threads of a mushroom that latch onto and colonize different substrates, into a material that imitates the look and feel of animal-…
Sun-powered textiles
January 1, 2022 | Swatches
Researchers at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, have created The Sun-Powered Textiles project. Because textiles can be purposely woven to let sunlight pass through them, the “porous” textile is laminated to commercially available solar cells, hiding the solar cells from view. The combination …
Stitchless, 3D, layered face mask launched
January 1, 2022 | Swatches
Created by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka, the AIRism 3D mask will be launched by Japanese brand UNIQLO early in 2022. The mask’s three-dimensional curved silhouette is designed to offer effective protection while resting comfortably on the face. The mask’s three layers include an inner l…
A new class of human-powered bioelectronics
January 1, 2022 | Swatches
A team of bioengineers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has invented a novel, soft and flexible self-powered bioelectronic device. The technology converts human body motions, from bending an elbow to subtle movements, such as a pulse on one’s wrist, into electricity that could be used to…
Origami design creates a portable canoe
January 1, 2022 | Swatches
The designers that launched MyCanoe nearly five years ago have been through several iterations of their packable canoe. The company’s most recent product is a lightweight, durable, foldable canoe, inspired by origami, that packs in a portable case, assembles in less than five minutes and fits in t…
Artificial industrial-use spider silk developed
January 1, 2022 | Swatches
Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) announced that they have developed spider silk that can be produced in large volumes without strong chemicals. This would make it possible to scale up this strong fiber for industrial and medical appli…