COSMOS MAGAZINE

Styling science: 8 fashion yarns of 2024

Credit: Mariana Ariza

1: Ocean camouflage inspires extreme-weather fabric Engineers inspired by marine creatures have made a fabric that adjusts to body heat and keeps you at a temperature of your choosing. The breathable and washable fabric could be used in athletic apparel, food packaging, infrared camouflage, soft robotics and biomedical sensing.

2: Rich cities, poor fashion: tackling textile waste As high-quality vintage clothing is becoming less common: charities reported that the rise of fast fashion has led to deteriorating clothes that are hard to sell again.  Many wealthy cities are the nexus of much of our fashion and textile industries. But how well are they dealing with waste – and what mechanisms could they use to be better?

3: The dawn of fashion When did clothing become a part of culture as opposed to protection from the elements? According to Dr Ian Gilligan, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney, the answer lies with needles with eyes in them – and the sewing of more delicate structures.

4: Old clothes could make concrete stronger Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of textiles end up in Australian landfill every year. But a team, based at RMIT University in Melbourne, has been trialling ways to add fibres from old clothes and carpets into concrete to decrease initial cracks, and increase durability.

Pictured: PhD scholar Nayanatara Ruppegoda Gamage (left) and Dr Chamila Gunasekara. Credit: RMIT University

5: How much is a bit of sparkle costing our environment?   A study into the Brazilian waterweed (Egeria densa) found that the metal coating on glitter impairs aquatic plant growth by hindering the underwater passage of light to significantly reduce a plant's photosynthetic rates, which dissolves oxygen and distrupts an ecosystem.

6: 17th century Instagram Samuel Pepys is famous for keeping an extremely detailed diary from 1660 to 1669, including a large collection of elaborate French fashion plates, giving historians a fascinating view into middle-class life in 17th Century. 

7: Nylon shirt recycled with enzymes An Australian startup has developed samples of a commercial garment made out of recycled nylon. The nylon in the top has mostly (90%) been made by recycling nylon with enzymes.

Sarah Cook, of Samsara Eco, with an enzymatically recycled top. Credit: Samsara Eco

8: Extremely cool clothes: passive cooling textiles High-tech textiles might be a smart way to reduce the toll on humans in heating cities. Some, based on lotus leaves, might even repel rain.

Pictured above: Schematic of layered structure of SSHF textile. Credit Zhengzhou University.

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