August 21, 2016

"Fashion's Fourth Industrial Revolution"

Classy Uncomplicated Hemp - these are not oxymorons

Fabric innovation has been in the news a lot lately. It's an exciting time to be part of the fashion industry, as new technologies are driving advances in materials sciences and opening up a whole new field of possibilities for the clothes we wear. Fashion is frivolous? No. It has the power to transform the world and all of our lives with it.

This article by Kate Abnett in The Business of Fashion has completely captivated us.  It's an incredibly intelligent and well-written piece about the intersection of science and fashion today. She writes that we are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution -- powered by a constellation of new innovations across the physical, digital and biological worlds, from 3D printing and artificial intelligence to advances in biomaterials -- which is driving a new wave of change across the economy, with major implications for fashion.

Certainly, it's been exciting to see emerging innovations in materials science, such as pineapple leather (wonderful), mushroom leather (weird), and all the ultra-high tech smart clothes (wild). More importantly, it underscores one of the main reasons we started Wallis Evera: the current demand for raw materials like cotton and leather already outstrips global supply, resulting in a vast, immediate and growing need for clothing made of alternative fibre sources. Hemp just makes sense.