Keywords

1 Introduction

During the 21st century, the research of new materials for fashion is particularly active and has produced important results, thanks to increasing investments in research and development [1, 80]. Among bio-fabricated textiles, seaweeds are gaining an increasingly prominent place, thanks in part to the development of textile technologies in the 1990s that analysed their properties and benefits for the body [2]. The paper analyses this phenomenon not only as an example of biotechnological innovation in the field of sustainability, but also as a producer of new imagery and activator of new dynamics in fashion design. Investigation filters are the theories on the new materialism that are spreading in fashion studies, also thanks to the contribution of Anneke Smelik, Professor of Visual Culture at the Radboud University Nijmegen and visiting professor 2022 at Università Iuav di Venezia on the proposal of Alessandra Vaccari.Footnote 1

2 New Materialism Within the Water

Placed in the philosophical horizon of posthumanism, which tries to overcome anthropocentrism and opens up the interconnections between human and non-human [3], the new materialism responds to the demands of a fashion in which the human is decentralised and related to plants, animals, and digital technologies. What posthumanism and the new materialism share is their effort to overcome dualisms. Consistently, posthuman fashion questions the notion of material agentivity [4], engaging with the increasingly performative role of the relationship between body and dress in the process of embodiment [5]. In this perspective, design practices mediate the experience of oneself and one’s surroundings in material and imaginative ways, transforming the interrelationships between individuals, the social environment, imaginaries and ecology. Mediators of this experience are precisely the materials, which become “vibrant” [6], living and intelligent matter.

One example of this is the recent experiments on the transformation of seaweed into fabrics and materials for fashion, the object of this contribution. It is worth emphasising that, unlike the traditional materials used in fashion whose imagery has over time become linked to fast fashion, intensive production and lack of sustainability, seaweeds are perceived as pristine. They are plants historically associated with an idea of well-being and health due to their extensive use in cosmetics. What is even more relevant is their relationship with water. Seaweed vegetates within (salt) water naturally, without human intervention and without requiring the consumption of fresh water during the plant's growth, thus overcoming one of the main critical issues in the relationship between fashion and this element. According to a 2017 report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in fact, the textile industry for fashion uses approximately 93 billion cubic metres of water each year, accounting for about 4% of global freshwater withdrawal [7, 38]. Since the second half of the 20th century, the relationship between the textile industry and water has been marked by a growing awareness of its no longer sustainable impact on this resource, due to the need for irrigation in the cultivation of fibres, the use in operations to convert them into textiles, and the spillage of chemicals used during manufacturing processes into groundwater [8].

In recent years fashion design has been considering water not only as a resource to be safeguarded, but also as a natural environment capable of providing new materials, particularly seaweed, to be transformed into yarns and fabrics [9]. Actually, interest in seaweed was not born in the 21st century, but the first studies on the properties and potential of seaweed in manufacturing, including textiles, appeared in the second half of the 19th century, although they did not subsequently find significant development and application [10]. Commenting on the words of writer Margaret Gatty, author in 1863 of British Sea-Weeds, ecocriticism researcher Stephen E. Hunt observes that this fusion of sea and nature simultaneously creates a sense of familiarity and estrangement in the midst of other creatures [11, 20, 21]. Hunt's reflection helps to understand the motivations behind the current diffusion of seaweed-based materials in fashion and other design disciplines, which do not seem to be exclusively traceable to the search for innovative and sustainable materials. Indeed, as Chiara Scarpitti writes, the increasing cooperation between design and natural sciences is also due to the rise of independent design practices, which on an international level have translated the utopia of transdisciplinary dialogue into a reality [12, 83].

Aquatic exploration in search of new wearable materials can be interpreted, on the one hand, as a metaphor for the “making kin” advocated by Donna Haraway [13], in the form of new alliances between biology, technology, design, and environment [14, 15]; on the other hand, as an effect of the contamination typical of the multispecies landscape, in which each organism becomes itself only with the assistance of other species [16]. The body, mostly composed of water, metaphorically becomes the support on which the seaweed-based garments come to life. Seaweed thus becomes the raw material for making objects capable of defining new aesthetic and communicative imagery through tangible experiences.

3 A Workshop with Fashion Design Students

This contribution analyses the outcomes of a field research that involved from October 2021 to February 2022 first-year students of the Master's degree course in Fashion at Università Iuav di Venezia in the development of a project starting from seaweed fabrics.

The fabric was provided by Tabinotabi, partner in the research project and one of the first companies in Italy to introduce seaweed as a material for fashion. In 2018, founder Alessandra Defranza developed the idea of a fashion project in Venice to be made with new-generation fabrics. Her research, conducted in collaboration with a Tuscan textile company, initially explored different possibilities of non-traditional materials and finally the choice converged on seaweeds, also because of the imagery that links them to Venice and its lagoon [17]. The fabric is produced by Tabinotabi using SeaCell fibre, made by a German company incorporating brown seaweeds harvested in the Icelandic fjords, dehydrated and pulverised, into a natural cellulose fibre. The harvesting of this seaweed is certified as sustainable, as only the part that is able to regenerate is taken from the underwater plant. After harvesting, the seaweed is not processed, thus keeping all beneficial properties intact.

Tabinotabi is one of the brands that have been researching the possibilities of seaweed in fashion in recent years. AlgiKnit, for example, is an American start-up that makes strong yet biodegradable yarns with Kelp seaweed; the alginate from the seaweed is pulverised and turned into a water-based gel to which natural dyes are added and finally extruded into long filaments. Seaweed also plays a leading role in the technical clothing brand Vollebak, which has created a compostable t-shirt to be buried in the garden at the end of its life, where it biodegrades in 8–12 weeks depending on temperature and humidity. It is made of eucalyptus, beech pulp fibres and algae grown in laboratories inside bioreactors, in line with their approach of artificialising nature; the t-shirt is printed with green ink based on spirulina algae, a natural pigment that oxidises and fades with air, inviting one to care for it as if it were a living being. Care is also at the heart of the Biogarmentry non-woven fabric, designed by Roya Aghighi in collaboration with AMPEL Lab and Botany Lab at the University of British Columbia; born from the challenge of providing survival to photosynthetic cells of algal origin on fabrics made of natural fibres based on cellulose and proteins, these “living clothes” are activated by the sun and are an invitation to literally take care of one’s wardrobe.

As reported by Defranza,Footnote 2 the possibility of using seaweed from the Venice lagoon was experimented, trying to favour local resources and encourage a greater relationship with the territory. However, the results were not satisfactory, given the type of local seaweed that required excessive complexity during the production process and a low final quality of the yarn. Despite the fact that seaweed from Venice are currently not usable in the production of new-generation fabrics and it is necessary to use raw material from northern Europe, what is relevant for the purposes of this research is the material’s ability to generate new dynamics within the fashion design process. For this reason, it was decided to develop a field research, involving fashion design students, to observe their approach to seaweed fabrics, the influences on design methodologies and the relationships activated. In this contribution, therefore, seaweed fabrics are analysed not so much for their different sustainability compared to traditional materials, but for new dynamics that modify design and designers. Designers are observed in this investigation for their ability to redirect the present [18] through a practice that involves new materials.

As part of the Advanced Workshop of Fashion Techniques and Materials, of which I am lecturer, the students were asked to design a collection from seaweed-based fabrics. During the first meeting of the workshop, the 37 students were introduced to the fabric and some samples were shown, without referring to examples of material use in order to avoid any conditioning in the subsequent design activity. The students, who mostly did not know each other as they came from different BA degree courses, were asked to divide into 7 teams, trying to hybridise their different previous training experiences. No project brief was given, the only element was the fabric, with the request to design and realise a capsule collection that would enhance it.

Initially, there was a partial diffidence of the workshop participants, caused by two reasons. The first one is that the request to work in a team, with unknown people, contrasts with the need for the expression of individual creativity and design identity that is almost always found in students; this request, however, stemmed from the desire to encourage a collaborative approach, somehow experiencing the idea of making kin first hand, to cancel design methodologies consolidated in previous experiences, and start again from the material. The second one is related to the fact that seaweed fabric was initially brought back by the students to the category of sustainability, even though this term was not used in the project presentation: the concept of sustainability in fashion, in fact, often remains anchored to an idea of limitation, deprivation, less creative freedom, and lack of aesthetic research.

In spite of these initial criticalities, the teams began the design research phase, questioning themselves on what it entails to deal with a fabric like this, what differences there are – from a conceptual as well as a physical point of view – compared to traditional fabrics, what it means to develop this project in Venice, a city whose imagery has often been associated with seaweed, but which today also represents a critical element from an environmental point of view, invading the canals with alien species. The following are some of the projects developed during the workshop, which provide an insight into how the students related to this material.

4 From Seaweed to Bodies

The project entitled Symbiosis was developed from the symbiotic relationship between seaweed and humans in the field of biological engineering. Also through the analysis of some living textiles case studies, such as those of the designer Paula Ulargui Escalona, the team decided to work on the idea of clothing as a second skin. Considering the beneficial properties of SeaCell fibre, the project was configured as a layering of garments adjacent to the human body, in symbiosis with each other and with the body. A layering of transparencies that covers the body and partially conceals it. In this case, the material stimulated an in-depth reflection on the relationship between dress and body, on the need for fashion to design the boundary between the individual and the space around it. The body returns as the protagonist of the fashion project, it becomes an object of attention and care [19, 113].

The Confini (Boundaries) project starts from a reflection by Iosif Brodskij about the relationship between seaweed and rock [20], in an idea of colonisation, of contrast between visible and invisible, between rigid and organic form. This originates a series of felt garments with increased and defined geometric volumes, apparently bare, aseptic and separated from the body. In reality, inside them they enclose sensorial, soft and living embroideries, made with the waste from the processing of seaweed fabric, enhanced through manual stitching and dyeing. The seaweed fabric is therefore hidden inside, in contact with the body, stimulating an intimate, tactile, and non-visual relationship. In contrast to what is usually done, the focus is on the inside of the garments and not on their outward appearance.

Moving from Gilles Clément’s idea of the “third landscape” as a refuge for diversity [21], the Residui (Residues) project consists of a set of garments capable of accommodating different bodies. Going beyond a hierarchical scheme that places humans at the top in the relationship with plants and animals, the team investigated how to encourage an attitude of care and balance. To this end, students focused on the beneficial properties – antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-ageing – of SeaCell fibre, designing a “second skin” garment to be worn as a first layer in contact with the body, promoting cell regeneration and breathability. Above this, the other garments can be adjusted in length and width through belts, buttons and laces to fit every kind of body. A project, therefore, that goes beyond the idea of size and standard, encouraging a hypothetical more sustainable production system. The result is an idea of inclusive fashion, capable of accommodating different bodies, which can be realised through size-less garments that, with a view to mass production, allow for a reduction in prototypes and waste (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
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Residuals project. MA students in Fashion and Visual Arts, Università Iuav di Venezia, 2023.

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The Algae project intervenes more directly on the sustainability needs of fashion, translating physical experimentation with seaweed fabrics into a conceptual exploration that intersects processes of co-creation, valorisation of the archive, and do it yourself. The output is an editorial project, a magazine that responds to an educational commitment of the designer: not only the capsule collection created is presented, but each reader is given the opportunity to reproduce one of the garments thanks to the paper pattern that is provided using available fabrics and obtaining accessories from second-hand garments. The garments are conceived as decomposable and interchangeable, in a logic of optimising consumption and reducing waste: one and the same garment can be transformed into different garments responding to different needs of wearability and use. In some of the garments made, zero-waste design methods are adopted, which optimise the consumption of seaweed fabric and eliminate manufacturing waste (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
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Algae project. MA students in Fashion and Visual Arts, Università Iuav di Venezia, 2023.

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The latest project is Fisciù. Venetian constellations, significant for shifting the focus of the project from the body to the territory. The seaweed fabric suggested a reinterpretation of Venice, resuming that relationship between imaginaries mentioned earlier. The visual representation of the city, analysed through postcards, photos and archive documents, gave rise to colour maps with which fisciù, neckscarves typical of 17th and 18th century Venetian fashion, were designed. These were made from felt by water-textured manipulation of textile fibres on a fabric and translating the colour maps through manual natural dyeing. The project is completed by the packaging of the fisciù, consisting of a print of a map of Venice on which a possible itinerary for discovering the city is suggested: the fashion object is thus transformed into a device that encourages a relationship with the place (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.
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Fisciù project. MA students in Fashion and Visual Arts, Università Iuav di Venezia, 2023.

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These are just a few of the projects developed during the workshop, but they are enough to bring out some important reflections on the investigation carried out. It was observed that seaweed fabrics were not only considered by the participants as a new, more sustainable material to be applied within traditional creative processes, but also stimulated the exploration of new approaches and new relationships between fashion and the human and non-human world. They have been perceived as ‘vibrant’, living materials, evolving over time, important to care for and that activate a caring dynamic with the wearer, in a redefinition of the concepts of fabric and fashion. Unlike traditional natural plant fibres, such as cotton and linen, seaweed is characterised not only by evoking an exotic and still unfamiliar imagery, but also by a low-impact production system: it is abundant in nature; it does not require irrigation; only the part that can regenerate is used; it does not consume arable land or require pesticides or fertilisers; it biodegrades quickly; it is naturally fire-resistant, reducing the need to add toxic flame retardants to clothes; it is processed in plants that are already geared towards energy optimisation [22]. However, the possible criticalities of this phenomenon should not be overlooked: emissions and costs related to transport, as most of the production is located in Iceland; loss of centrality of territories historically used for the cultivation of traditional fibres; colonisation of new marine areas for the development of intensive seaweed cultivation with possible imbalances in the ecosystem.

5 Conclusions

This research thus demonstrates how an object such as seaweed fabric is not only a response to the need to identify new sustainable materials for fashion, but represents a stimulus to redefine the fashion design itself and its relations with environment, territories, people, and bodies. In the experimentation with seaweed, nature becomes raw material for constructing aesthetic and cultural imagery. The theory of a new materialism in the post-human perspective has thus found confirmation, committed to bringing matter and bodily experience back to the centre of the debate in its weaving interconnections with the world.