Bio Couture: Clothes made from Kombucha Culture

Posted in Aesthetics, bio, Environment, Fashion by yeahsnos on June 2, 2011

London-based suzanne lee, is a senior research fellow in the school of fashion / textiles, central saint martins, london. She is also the creative director of biocouture which investigates the growth of clothing through the use of bacterial cellulose. Lee’s latest garment – which uses these growing textiles – is the ‘biocouture’ jacket made from cellulose. Instead of coming from plants, the cellulose is produced by millions of tiny bacteria grown in bathtubs of sweet green tea.

I have been growing Kombucha cultures myself for the last year or so and they grow really easily. All they need is tea, sugar and some oxygen. As long as the container is not contaminated with harmful bacteria or germs, this wonder drink will continue fermenting. Suzanne Lee has a TED talk dedicated to making clothes from the culture as well, which you can find at the bottom of this post. Its cheap, accessible, biodegradable and probably even durable. I have always been drinking the beverage, its time for me to try to dry the cultures in to pieces of clothing myself.