An influential system overseen by retailers and clothing makers ranks petroleum-based synthetics like “vegan leather” as more environmentally sound than natural fibers.
Tag Archives: Textiles
When the Textile Industry Was Forced Out of the Textile Building
Companies may have lost their showroom hub, but low rents in Midtown, caused by the pandemic, allowed many of them to relocate.
One Garment’s Journey Through History
The evolution of the Korean hanbok is a lens into the history of the country, which is now being traced in the series “Pachinko.”
Glimpses of Northern India’s Vanishing Nomads
For centuries, Kharnak nomads have raised livestock in one of the most hauntingly beautiful — and inhospitable — places on earth. Can their traditions outlast a generational exodus?
Emily Bode expands her Bode brand in Los Angeles.
Emily Bode expands her men’s wear brand into the heart of Los Angeles’s shopping district.
Do You Know Where Your Sweater Came From?
Loro Piana makes some of the world’s most luxurious cashmere. Now you can trace every step of its journey from Mongolia to Madison Avenue.
Bethan Laura Wood’s Fantastical London Home
Bethan Laura Wood has made her name dreaming up transportive rainbow-hued furniture and housewares. Her own London home is just as fantastical.
The Wandering Creativity of Sophie Taeuber-Arp
The Swiss artist did it all — paintings and puppets, sculpture and tapestry — and was underestimated because of it. At MoMA she joins the major leagues.
In Brussels, a Designer’s Home Awash With His Own Vibrant Creations
Christoph Hefti makes — and lives with — ebullient carpets and textiles inspired by magical realism and Latin American design.
Doppa, a Central Asian Hat, Guides Quest for Uyghur Roots
For an Australian woman with roots in Central Asia, a growing awareness of her heritage and the peril her people face all began with an embroidered skullcap.
I Love Fashion, but It Hurts My Skin.
A reader seeks advice on how to feel stylish while still sticking to safe fabrics.
Aaron Feuerstein, Mill Owner Who Refused to Leave, Dies at 95
After a fire devastated his Massachusetts factory in 1995, he kept paying his employees and spent hundreds of millions to rebuild.
The Enduring Appeal of Laura Ashley
With her floral-print dresses and housewares, the British designer created a romantic and instantly recognizable aesthetic that, decades later, is inspiring a wide range of dressers and brands.
Sister Parish Rises Again, in a Pop-Up
No longer just for the Kennedys and Astors: The great-granddaughter of a legendary decorator wants to make interior design more accessible.
A Textile Designer Who Draws on Art History and Neuroscience
An antidote to earth-toned minimalism, Ellen Van Dusen’s designs suggest that children aren’t the only ones drawn to bold colors and shapes.
Telling Stories of Black Life Rescued Him
The designer Ron Norsworthy explores his own experiences of marginalization in his textiles, installations and quilts.
The Ancient History and Enduring Appeal of Flying a Kite
For millenniums, the airborne objects have mesmerized cultures around the world. Now, a new generation of artists is taking their creation to new heights.
This Fjord Shows Even Small Populations Create Giant Microfiber Pollution
Researchers found that one tiny Arctic village’s unfiltered sewage produces as much microplastic as the treated waste of more than a million people.
The Cotton Tote Crisis
You can get cotton bags pretty much everywhere. How did an environmental solution become part of the problem?
Inside Betsey Johnson’s Malibu Dream House
The designer gives T a tour of her pretty but punk home in one of California’s most scenic trailer parks.
Why Is Fashion Talking About Regenerative Farming?
Brands like North Face, Allbirds and Patagonia, as well as the Kering luxury group, are all about agriculture these days. Here’s the dirt.
Global Brands Find It Hard to Untangle Themselves From Xinjiang Cotton
Under pressure to renounce cotton harvested in a Chinese region marked by gruesome repression, they face a backlash from nationalist Chinese consumers.
What is Going on with China, Cotton and All of These Clothing Brands?
A user’s guide to the latest cross-border social media fashion crisis.
16 Global Design Concepts for an Unpredictable Future
The challenges of the past year gave designers every reason to recede into the shadows, but creativity won’t be denied.
Woven Into History
The textiles women produced made our civilization what it is.
The Making of an Especially Intricate Fendi Baguette Bag
A new limited edition of the iconic style was hand-embroidered with a centuries-old technique.
A Swedish Design Duo’s Eclectic 18th-Century Apartment
In a country house on the Baltic coast, Nina Norgren and Bengt Thornefors, the founders of the textile and furniture brand Magniberg, have made a home entirely their own.
Allbirds is investing in plant-based leather substitute as it looks to further green its supply chain
The sustainability focused shoe maker Allbirds has taken another step to green its supply chain with a small $2 million investment in a new company called Natural Fiber Welding.
Announced this morning, the investment in Natural Fiber Welding will see Allbirds bring a vegan leather replacement option to customers by December 2021. It’s a natural addition for a company that has always billed itself as focused on environmental impact in other aspects of its apparel manufacturing.
Allbirds these days is far more than a shoe company and Natural Fiber Weldings suite of products that include both a purportedly tougher cotton fiber made using the company’s proprietary processing technology and a plant-based leather substitute.
Those materials could find their way into Allbirds array of socks, shoes, tshirts, underwear, sweaters, jackets, and face masks. Natural Fiber Welding already touts a relationship with Porsche on its website, so Allbirds isn’t the only company that’s warmed to the Peoria, Ill.-based startup’s new materials.
With the addition of Allbirds Natural Fiber Welding has raised roughly $15 million, according to data from Pitchbook. Other investors in the company include Central Illinois Angels, Prairie Crest Capital, Ralph Lauren Corp. and Capital V, an investment firm focused on backing vegan products.
Allbirds is far from the only clothier to make the jump to plant-based materials in the past year. The buzzy clothing company Pangaia invested $2 million into a company called Kintra which is making a bio-based polyester substitute in December.
By the far the biggest startup name in the sustainable fashion space is a company like Bolt Threads, which has inked deals with companies including Stella McCartney, Adidas, and the owner of the Balenciaga fashion house (among others).
Other startups that have raised significant capital for plant-based fabrics and materials are companies like Mycoworks, which raised $45 million last year from backers include John Legend, Natalie Portman along with more traditional investors like WTT Investment Ltd. (Taipei, Taiwan), DCVC Bio, Valor Equity Partners, Humboldt Fund, Gruss & Co., Novo Holdings, 8VC, SOSV, AgFunder, Wireframe Ventures and Tony Fadell.
With Natural Fiber Welding’s products Allbirds is boasting about a significantly reduced environmental footprint for its leather-like material. Natural Fiber Welding claims its material reduce the associated carbon footprint by 40 times and uses 17 times less carbon in its manufacturing than synthetic leather made from plastic.
The company does say that the plant leather will use natural rubber, an industry with its own history of human rights abuses, that’s also trying to clean up its act.
“For too long, fashion companies have relied on dirty synthetics and unsustainable leather, prioritizing speed and cost over the environment,” says Joey Zwillinger, co-founder and co-CEO of Allbirds, in a statement. “Natural Fiber Welding is creating scalable, sustainable antidotes to leather, and doing so with the potential for a game-changing 98% reduction in carbon emissions. Our partnership with NFW and planned introduction of Plant Leather based on their technology is an exciting step on our journey to eradicate petroleum from the fashion industry.”
TechCrunch has reached out to Allbirds for additional comment, but had not received a reply at the time of publication.
Could Brexit Destroy British Fashion?
Already pushed to the breaking point by the pandemic, designers, manufacturers and retailers claim the newly-negotiated Brexit deal is a disaster.
Ella Emhoff Makes a Small Collection of Knitwear
The second daughter turned model released a five-piece collection. Only one of each item was made.
The Makers Keeping the Ancient Art of Weaving Alive
Through thoughtful collaborations with Mexican artisans in Oaxaca and elsewhere, contemporary designers are helping to evolve — and protect — one of the world’s most enduring handicrafts.
Fashion Trends Are Often Recycled. Now More Clothing Can Be, Too.
Designers and tech start-ups are working to improve sustainability and interrupt the path to the landfill.
Preserving Brutal Histories, One Garment at a Time
An expert in conserving garments for museums and collectors finds a new calling in saving the clothes worn by victims of atrocities.
Design Works Prints From Tillett Textiles are Back
In the late 1960s, Tillett Textiles teamed up with designers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for a historically significant collaboration. Now the prints are being reissued.
Guido Goldman, a U.S. Bridge to Germany, Dies at 83
A Kissinger protégé (and a pre-eminent textile art collector), his fingerprints can be found on many of the leading postwar institutions linking the two allies.
From 2 Artists, 2 Ways to Tell Stories of Black America
Works by Bisa Butler and Barbara Earl Thomas are featured in major museum shows in Chicago and Seattle. It’s a star turn that many feel is long overdue.
Dogs Once Made Pretty Nice Wool Blankets, Too
Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest once bred dogs in large numbers and sheared them for wool.
The Incredible Whiteness of the Museum Fashion Collection
In the small group of high-culture institutions that venerate the art of fashion, Black designers have been largely overlooked.
In Connecticut, a House That Blurs the Boundaries of Time and Place
At her family home, the textile designer Nathalie Farman-Farma has drawn from ancient Eastern and Western influences with scholarly respect and stylish abandon.
Shopping for Blankets
Because it may not be cold yet, but it will be soon.
In Italy, a Fabric Designer’s Wildly Colorful Home
Perched above the shores of Lake Como, the vibrant weekend house of Caterina Fabrizio is a shrine to pattern and texture.
That Mushroom Motorcycle Jacket Will Never Go Out of Style
Leather goods made of fungi are versatile and sustainable, a new study finds.
U.S. May Ban Cotton From Xinjiang Region of China Over Rights Concerns
The potential move, which could come as soon as Tuesday, comes amid reports of the use of forced labor in Xinjiang, where China has carried out a crackdown against mostly Muslim minorities.
Fabrics With Powerful Stories to Tell
The Afro-Brazilian sculptor Sonia Gomes, in a debut U.S. show, gives materials new life — as they have given her life new balance.
Save the Gaiters!
A small study prompted fears that neck gaiters could spread more virus droplets than they stop. But new research shows that those face coverings can protect just as well as other cloth masks.
Don’t Wait to Deck Out Your Back Porch
The pandemic has many people thinking about how they’ll spend time outside as the weather cools, meaning favorites items may soon be in short supply.
The Artist Unraveling American History
Best known for her series of deconstructed flags, Sonya Clark offers poignant, clearsighted reminders of this country’s legacy of racial violence.
White Customers, Black Fabrics
Black-owned businesses make amazing clothing inspired by African patterns. What happens when, inevitably, everyone else starts buying them?
Coalition Brings Pressure to End Forced Uighur Labor
More than 190 organizations have come together to demand an end to garments made by forced labor in China.
Banned Chinese Companies Deny Allegations They Abused Uighurs
Several firms that were blacklisted by the U.S. Commerce Department said they had found no evidence of forced labor or other abuses.