Fashion designer Phillip Lim has teamed up with industrial designer Charlotte McCurdy to create a petroleum-free dress covered in bioplastic sequins.
Algae bioplastic fronds are sewn onto a biodegradable base layer made of plant fibres. This makes the dress free of crude-oil derivatives such as synthetic fibres, dyes and plastic sequins, which have recently come under fire for the pollution they cause.
The dress is the result of a collaboration between Phillip Lim and Charlotte McCurdy
"Sustainability in fashion is not just about organic, natural or recycled textiles," McCurdy told Dezeen. "If we're going to get to zero on our emissions, we need to be thinking about how to replace the 60 per cent of textiles that are currently made of fossil fuels." The collaboration is part of the One X One project, an incubator that pairs high-profile fashion designers with sustainability innovators.
McCurdy developed the algae sequins from her own bioplastic
New York-based McCurdy has previously developed an algae bioplastic film made entirely of marine macro-algae, which removes and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere throughout its life making the resulting material carbon negative.
The challenge was to find a way to turn this experimental, non-woven material into a luxury garment for Lim's fashion label 3.1 Phillip Lim. Since the bioplastic comes in the form of sheets rather than threads, the duo settled on sequins as the best application while simultaneously r...