THE FUTURE WARDROBE PROJECT
BARCELONA
Conversations with Jessica & CW
Written by CW Nolen

Originally from Venezuela, Catherine Euale began her career as a costume designer in the Canadian entertainment industry. More recently, after living in Morocco to work as a yoga instructor, she reunited with sustainable makers Thora H. Arnardottir, Jessica Dias and Lara Campos who she met at the Fabricacademy program. Together, they formed The Future Wardrobe Project. Having given numerous talks at educational institutions in the past, the team is now producing their first collective DIY maker workshops under the name Paraguai Projects. They hope to share their open-source methods of creating sustainable, wearable fabrics derived from biomaterials with the world.

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How did you enter sustainable fabrication? CATHERINE: I studied fashion and from there grew very critical of the industry. My first gig was upcycling: buying vintage clothes and thinking, “I love vintage, but some of it is just so frumpy. I want to make something cool with it.” The industry demands that you use certain chemicals, dyes, or fabrics and processes that are very unsustainable and toxic — to both the workers and environment.

I did the Fabricacademy program at Fab Textiles to study new emerging technologies, digital fabrication, wearable electronics, and biomaterials. For three months I took this course because I wanted to be surrounded by people with this expertise, to help me to develop and experiment more — with mycelium or kombucha leathers for instance. I sort of stumbled upon algae and bioplastics in the program.

The Future Wardrobe Project team consists of: Thora H. Arnadottir, an experimental biodesign PhD researcher who works with us from the UK, Jessica Dias, a biomaterials researcher and Lara Campos, whose work involves sprouting textiles. Jessica and Lara are both based here in Barcelona. We are further developing biopolymer from algae. We’re rethinking traditional design practices and co-creating with organisms to form living garments. In the context of fashion, it’s disruptive design.

In 2021, you’ll have your own studio open. Is The Future Wardrobe Project, that you’ve created with these other women designers, the main initiative? CATHERINE: The Future Wardrobe Project is what brought us back together after Fabricacademy. This project has been in conception since June of 2019 when after living in Barcelona for a year and exploring different materials, I moved to Morocco to teach yoga. Lara and I came up with this crazy idea of, “What will wardrobes of the future look like?” We dreamed up an incubator where living biomaterial garments live and are cleaned, not with water, but with a mist of essential oils and UV lights. So that crazy concept has slowly become more and more refined. Through our own material exploration, knowledge, expertise and investigations, we have been able to actually concretize this project and come together here in Barcelona.

Can you summarize what we could call the “manifesto” for the Future Wardrobe Project? CATHERINE: This project is a narrative of what we think designing for a symbiotic future could look like within the framework of biomaterials: bio-grown or bio-fabricated materials. It means gaining more knowledge of how to make our own materials, ones that are compatible with living systems, rethinking our connection with them and new ways of taking care of them. We work with open-source projects, using knowledge about materials that are shared in the community and manipulate it in our own vision to come up with something futuristic that stimulates an emotional response in our audience.

We have a lot to learn from our ancestors’ traditional practices. At the same time, we are transforming what we learn into a more modern context. Evolution sometimes looks like devolution, like we’re going back to the old ways of doing things. We can merge traditional knowledge and value with emerging digital technologies to create new systems for production.

In this future world we envision, we would care for an organism which then could grow into skin-like sheets or cloth. One of our ideas is to have an incubator for these specialized living organic textiles or skins. We have already grown kombucha or mycelium leather-like skins that we can manipulate into wearable things. In this case, we’re using algae in a very simple simulated cooking process to make vinyl or rubber-like hydrophobic (water-repellent) sheets. We ask, “What does it mean to wear this cloth? What does it mean to wear an organism and be aware of its aliveness — how do we take care of it?” With this new way of clothing ourselves, how do we actually take care of living garments? This is also a huge issue because the way we take care of our clothes is a big pollutant as well: microplastics, chemicals and dyes leech from our washing. It’s an interesting exercise rethinking a simple act such as laundering, something that we take for granted, but that ultimately has a large environmental impact.

We give so much importance to organic food and taking care of our bodies; it’s equally important to take care of the things we’re putting on our bodies, because they’re soaked in chemicals and made unsustainably. Many factory workers making the garments are examples of modern slavery and they work in unsafe environments, using chemicals that cause cancers and disease. We don’t accept toxins in our food, why do we accept that with clothing? There’s a total disconnect. That’s what we’re advocating for —natural systems — rather than creating garments that lead to the plastification and toxicity of the ocean. We also host workshops because we believe in democratizing knowledge. We really want to be open-source, as much as we can.

How do you see the work you’re exploring being implemented in a practical or commercial application? CATHERINE: The material exploration that I took on is the alginate bioplastic based on the research of AlgiKnit, an algae biomaterials company that creates algae-based yarns for woven or knit fabrics, and Algix, an eco-friendly company that supplies algae-based materials for footwear companies. AlgiKnit created Algikicks which are sneakers made with a filament derived alginate — a thickening agent. It becomes a hydrophobic material with a plastic or rubber feel that is waterproof and biodegradable.

Another thing to think about is: can we make these new garments modular? For instance, I made a small bag from kombucha a couple of years ago. I dried out a skin and made the bag from little intersecting squares. If one of the squares were to rip, then you could just recut that square along the little slits, and replace the square. It was a super simple design and didn’t require fancy machinery. Simple, but at the same time, taking something that is more of a traditional practice and turning that into something never seen before. It’s about new applications, materials, and ways of thinking. Modularity definitely helps in working with new materials.

I think to hyper-focus on biotech as a panacea for global issues is a total misconception of the major consciousness shift we should be having instead. I truly believe there is inherent value in engaging with the material itself — feeling it, smelling it — using all of your senses while having an emotional response to a material. Speculatively, we could think of our garments as food. Technically, you could eat this bioplastic, the ingredients are used to make food items with. The production waste from this material can be used as animal feed, so what appears to be waste, is not. Nature is the ultimate recycler; it does not waste.

Disposable items are not the way of the future, we need to really become stewards of our clothing by being cognizant of the end-of-life use for each product — whatever it may be that you’re using this material for, and remembering how our choices affect the living ecosystem. Nature cannot go at the pace that we are excessively prodding it to. The fabric is really part of a multitude of beings that connect us back to the earth, to algae systems.

To prove the biocompatibility of our material, we’ve run some tests to make sure we’re not jumping into material romanticism, like with plastic after the war: everyone fell in love with all the things that they could do with plastic, and nobody really thought of the repercussions. We cannot think that this alginate material can be scaled in the same way that we’re used to obtaining commercial goods.

How feasible is the DIY fabrication process your workshops offer? Do you think your process is streamlined enough that laypeople can easily produce alginate fabrication in their own homes? CATHERINE: We have a lot of workshops where we teach people to make bioplastics. It’s super easy. In three hours, we can make a bunch of sample bioplastics. Maybe they’re not even interested in making textiles, they just want to learn more about this emerging field. This is the place where we can rely on craft and tradition, such as couture, or tailoring, and going back to a slower pace of consumption. Sustainability is a human right as much as it is an Earth right. It’s really important to come up with new ways of making customizable and replicable garments and materials — whatever that shape may take on in the future. Maybe we’re not wearing just garments anymore. That’s what this exploration, where we incorporate a living algae system, is about. We’re being symbionts of this algae. We don’t only have algae as a companion, but algae have a human companion. Making partnerships and new radical collaborations is the new future that we’re projecting into.

Is your current funding sufficient for you to continue with the work you do, and for how long? How do you plan to continue? CATHERINE: The Worth Partnership Program is funding the Future Wardrobe Project right now and we constantly apply to open calls. Some of our colleagues are doing 3D printing and we have a small biology laboratory where we grow kombucha and mycelium. In 2021, our studio will be available for new collaborators. Currently, we are researching using the discarded skins of coffee husks with our mycelium and some other substrates, to make surfboards with the Plat Institute. It’s through collaborations with as many people and institutes as we know, and through as many workshops we can give, that we are able to continue this research and artistic work. It helps that we have received some funding, which keeps our space going. As much as we would like to not have money be a thing of existence, and only live off of trades and skill sharing, it unfortunately doesn’t work that way.

How can someone join your workshops at Paraguai Projects, and can they attend virtually? CATHERINE: We are not currently online, although that has crossed our minds, but Lara Campos and I host workshops at ConnectHort, an urban garden here in Barcelona. Both Jessica Dias and I have been hosting mycelium workshops. We are trying to connect with maker spaces until our own physical space is open for workshops, which is our goal for 2021. We’ll also continue to do workshops at Plat and TMDC, two local makerspaces.

What sustains you, in terms of motivation? CATHERINE: I am a yogi, a yoga teacher, and I feel like yoga drives my soul. It’s why I do what I do. For my work with textiles, it’s very much informed by yoga philosophy and a-himsa— a very trendy word meaning, “no harm.” That rings true for me, “How much is it in my control? And if it is in my control, how much can I do with my thoughts and words and actions, to not harm myself or others — and by others, I mean, people, biodiversity and planet?”

Future Wardrobe

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Workshops and the zine are organized by Slow + Sustain through the volunteer efforts of our contributors. Funding comes from both the contributors and the public.