Tag: Fashion

Inventive genius isn’t age-restricted. In recent times, school-age children have developed a lead filter for water taps, while this 23-year-old student created a new smog filter. Air quality is equally important for a 12-year-old English girl whose mother has asthma. She developed a rucksack which filters polluted air, incorporating an air filter and ventilators onto the front of her...

Not everyone needs to wait so long for a hair appointment thanks to a Toronto startup. But those using hair extensions are often obliged to make do with plastic products. A team of Black female founders in America is hoping to change that, however, and has developed a plant-based alternative to traditional hair extensions. In place of a synthetic...

Fish remains could replace the plastic used in packaging and clothes. Snakes, crocodiles and lizards are reared in animal farms to meet the luxury goods industry’s demand for exotic leather. Now, a Portuguese startup is hoping to prevent some 2 million animals each year from ending up as watch straps, shoes or bags. Animal cells are taken once from...

Willow- and banana plant fibres are already making their way in the fashion industry. Now, a Dutch startup is using some of the 72 million kilograms of human hair waste produced in the EU each year to make textiles. First, hair collected from salons is sorted and washed. Next it’s spun into yarn on traditional spinning wheels from which...

Biodegradable jeans decompose fully within 6 months. And now, two parents from Oregon have developed baby shoes that dissolve in boiling water. Like these founders before them, their startup aims to reduce textile waste. The soft shoes are suitable for babies up to 1 year old, and are made from silk fabric coated with biodegradable plastic. Sturdy and machine-washable...

Some car tyres adjust their diameter. Now a London-based shoe startup is working on kids’ sneakers that adjust by three or more half-sizes to keep up with fast growing feet. Sustainability is key for the female founder and her team, who are using organic cotton and pineapple leaf fibres for new shoes, as well as offering a recycling service...

Older models are all the rage. But some items of clothing wear easily. Now, a Swedish company founded by scientists is recycling used clothing and production waste from cotton or viscose. Having been de-zipped and de-buttoned, the textiles are ground and dissolved into non-toxic chemicals. The resulting pulp of cellulose fibres is freed from unwanted residues, dried and made...

Skin cancer can be detected early using mobile phones. Though sun-cream and clothing help with prevention, the latter are often treated with potentially hazardous chemicals. Enter a Finnish research team, which has spun a new yarn. They isolated fibres from a fast-growing species of willow by using sodium bicarbonate and mixed them with the same amount of cellulose. Materials...