Lichens and slime mold might not sound glamorous, but their intriguing properties and eco credentials are turning heads in the fashion world. Biodesigner Piero D’Angelo explains why living organisms could be the next big thing in couture and beyond.
It’s London Fashion Week. At Oasis Farm in Waterloo, the barn doors slide open and a model in a textured red dress steps on to the catwalk. A man with scissors approaches her and starts cutting into the dress, bright fragments fluttering to the floor around her feet.
Following the recent spate of incidents in which environmentalists have taken radical action to draw attention to the climate crisis, it would be easy to mistake this apparent vandalization for a climate protest. But as the model stands motionless, her arms spread wide, it becomes clear that the on-site redesign is intentional. Finally, the man spritzes water on the dress – the shape of which has changed before the audience’s eyes – and the model moves down the runway.
The beautiful garment, which would not look out of place at a cocktail party, is the creation of Piero D’Angelo, whose work straddles textile, fashion and biodesign. Biodesign is the use of living organisms in design. The aim is to create products whose properties are enhanced as a result of these living organisms.
Italian born and London based, D’Angelo became interested in biodesign while studying at the Royal College of Art. It has inspired his creative practice ever since. He often works with lichen, as in the case of the red dress, as well as algae and slime mold, which he cultivates himself. His fashion collections are currently experimental. However, he has developed a ‘grow your own couture’ kit, which won the Imagining Sustainable Fashion Award 2023. He hopes the kit can be commercialized in the future, intimately involving end users in the production of their clothes.
“Every material, every living organism has a different approach. So, I need to have a different approach depending on what I’m working with,” he says. “For example, slime mold is an organism that you can easily find if you go for a walk in a park after a rainy day. It loves damp, dark places, so you are likely to find it growing under a rock or a rotting tree. And it has a particular smell. The moment that you know what that smell is, you can start recognizing that there might be some slime mold growing in the area.”
It is an intriguing organism, he says. “From doing research, I found out you can actually control its behavior by placing a certain food source somewhere. The slime mold is attracted by the food source, and it will basically expand its body towards the food source. In one of my experiments, I found out that you can also control a living organism with scented molecules, similar to those you would find in perfumes.”
Some of these scented molecules attract the slime mold and others repel it. Armed with this knowledge, D’Angelo used his textile skills to draw a flower motif which he screen-printed on a sheet of tulle. Instead of applying printing paste, he applied a solution of agar, an algae-based gelatin that slime mold likes to eat. Finally, he added some attractant-scented molecules. “The moment that I placed the slime mold onto the pattern, it started growing, recreating the flower motif I had screen-printed on the tulle.”
Collaborating with nature to biodesign clothes
Lichen grows much more slowly – up to a few millimeters per year – but has its own distinct characteristics. One of these is absorbing pollutants and metabolizing them into non-dangerous compounds. As part of a speculative project, D’Angelo explored the idea of making garments from lichen that would absorb pollution around the wearer. During conversations with friends, he also became fascinated by their references to their house plants and their obvious attachment to these living beings in their homes.
“It made me think, what if you could create the same bond, the same relationship with a garment, so that you would think twice before throwing it away? What if we could actually switch the mentality? What kind of relationship would you get with the garment?”
“We created this experiment that showed that you could use slime mold as a self-repairing wire”
Piero d’Angelo
This thinking, “which goes against the behavior of fast fashion”, culminated in the red dress that he pruned and watered on the catwalk in Waterloo. It also informs many of the other pieces from the same collection. Lacy lichen hangs from the models’ ears and adorns shoes like furry pompoms, while slime mold is transformed into a glistening dress. Although not living, other natural materials and elements run through the designs. Coiling corsetry, inspired by sheep’s wool wrapped around a fence, recurs in several of the looks. “It’s about understanding nature and collaborating with nature rather than exploiting it,” D’Angelo says.
Self-repairing wire
As the fashion industry grapples with its huge environmental impact and the pressing need for more sustainable solutions, D’Angelo’s work offers a glimpse of a slower, greener form of couture. Beyond fashion, his biodesign expertise is finding applications in other areas. With PhD students in soft robotics at the Royal College of Art, he has been building on existing scientific theories.
“We created this experiment that showed that you could use slime mold as a self-repairing wire to transport energy. Maybe in the future we’ll have a bio computer where cables or bits of hardware can be replaced by this living organism.”
In another experiment, he investigated the use of slime mold to control a prosthetic arm. “We know that slime mold has a pulsation. That pulsation could be caught by electrodes and then transformed into a signal that would trigger, for example, a movement in the prosthetic arm. So, it has a lot of potential.”
On a much more basic level, D’Angelo believes we can all learn something from slime mold. “When slime mold looks for food, it’s like a team effort, a team effort to reach a common goal. I think that’s something that could apply to everybody. Even for us humans, all working together to reach a common goal. Whether that’s helping our world to be a better place or something else.”
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