Biodesign and the Allure of “Grow-made” Textiles: An Interview with Carole Collet

Abstract

Biodesign is at the forefront of innovations in advanced textiles and material futures. Incorporating principles of biomimicry, bioengineering and synthetic biology, a common leitmotif within biodesign initiatives is an ethos of working with or learning from organic processes. Embraced as an alternative to the traditional carbon intensive industrial practices and overconsumption purchasing habits that mark the contemporary fashion and textile industries, biodesigners, in fashion as in other fields, value regenerative production models, biodegradable materials, and circular economic models. Ecological concern is central to the biodesign discourse, where the key potential of biodesign is understood as its ability to overturn models of fast and cheap production and energy intensive procedures that have contributed to the damaging carbon footprint of the fashion industry. Biodesign is not simply a practical endeavour of producing alternative materials, it equally disrupts and rethinks contemporary ideologies of producing and purchasing that have proved ecologically detrimental. At this philosophical level, a number of concerns and theoretical framings intersect the theory of biodesign and issues that are sentient to cultural geographers. In this paper, we explore some of those shared interests through the presentation of a conversation held at Central Saint Martins, UAL in London in December 2018 between Carole Collet (a world-leader in biodesign textile research) and Nina Williams (a cultural geographer researching the ethics of biodesign).