Designer Kazuya Kawasaki on the future of zero-waste fashion design

What is the alternative role of the fashion designer in the age of biotechnology?

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A graduate of Keio University, bio-activist Kazuya Kawasaki is asking some interesting questions about the future of the fashion industry.

As technology evolves – from clothes that you can customise on your smartphone to clothes you can grow in a lab – how will the fashion industry keep up, change and adapt?

To conceptualise a potential future, Kawasaki started a DIY-project in which he combined organisms such as bacteria, yeast, fungi and algae together with liquid in a children’s blow-up pool to produce bacterial cellulose – a material that has similar properties to leather.

Speaking at the Design Indaba Conference 2016, he showed how this technology can have a positive impact on society.

He then presented the next iteration of his project at the first-ever antenna held in Eindhoven.

Watch the video for more.