Bio Sequins
Designed for the SDC International Design Competition 2019 sponsored by Archroma. Theme: Colour and Nature. Dorothy Waxman Prize Finalist 2019.
Bio-Sequins takes a traditionally flawed and wasteful textile embellishment and reimagines the material composition and colouration process to create a biodegradable sequin, utilising natural colour found in seeds, that can break down and grow into new plants after use.
Read more below.
Nature and sustainable design practices provide tremendous opportunities for innovation in the textiles industry, especially in the application of colour. Bio-Sequins takes a traditionally flawed and wasteful textile embellishment and reimagines the material composition and colouration process to create a biodegradable sequin, utilising natural colour found in seeds, that can break down and grow into new plants after use. This challenges the idea of colour permanence, recognising the ability of the Archroma Colour Atlas to track and identify the progression of colour in nature globally - like a leaf through the seasons - and apply this to textiles innovations.
New Zealand textile waste accounts for 6% of landfilled waste (Ministry for The Environment, 2017). One issue textile re-use has is the addition of decorations like sequins. Sequins are commonly fabricated using PET plastic, remaining in soils, rivers, and oceans for centuries beyond the life of sequins, especially considering sequin-wear is only worn 2-3 times before being abandoned. Additionally, 33% of sequin film is wasted during the conventional circle punching process (Chawla, 2018). Bio-Sequins utilises principles from nature to create innovative colourful embellishments using alternative materials that reduce the environmental impact.
Bio-Sequins draws inspiration from how colour is utilised across species and humans as a social signal – signalling a mood, physical response, or identity. A cold chameleon changes to a darker colour to absorb more heat (Jones, 2018). Additionally, forms like fish scales and bird feathers inspired the positioning of the sequins determining how we see colour; positioned to catch light, signify a special occasion, and draw attention.
Bio-Sequins uses combined starch, water, vegetable glycerine, and vinegar, cooked on the stove top to form a sticky paste, spread on a silicon sheet to dry for approximately one week to create a bio- based plastic. Bio-Sequins is influenced by the Cradle to Cradle notion where waste equals food (Braungart & McDonough, 2002). Products are designed from the outset to provide nourishment for something new. Seeds were added as natural colour pigments. Therefore, when Bio-Sequins decompose and seeds grow, biological nutrients re-enter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins (Braungart & McDonough, 2002). A sample of Bio-Sequins plastic almost fully decomposes within four weeks within a home compost. Using the seeds meant taking a form of brilliant colour that nature had already created, like those utilised in Archroma Earth Colours, instead of traditional man-made pigments whereby 750,000 metric tonnes of textile dyes are used annually to colour fabrics (The Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2015). The plant the seed grows - e.g black Basil seeds to green Basil Microgreens - creates a whole new series of colour palettes, challenging the idea that colour is permanent. A colour palette instead can reflect the transformation and lifecycle of a design like organisms in nature. The Bio-Sequins were laser-cut into hexagon shapes to link up like honeycomb and share cut lines to avoid wastage.
Bio-Sequins has the potential to inspire others globally to use the Archroma Colour Atlas to track and catalogue colours available in nature like those in seeds, and inspire others in the textile industry to utilise renewable bio-based materials as a new form of materials innovation.
References
Braungart, M & McDonough, W. (2002). Cradle to Cradle. New York, NY, U.S.A: North Point Press
Chawla, P. (2018). The Future of Embellishment–The Sustainable Sequin Company [Blog]. Retrieved 6 March 2019 from https://www.materialdriven.com/home/2018/5/9/the-future-of- embellishmentthe-sustainable-sequin-company
Jones, B. (2018). Chameleons’ Craziest Color Changes Aren’t for Camouflage [Blog]. Retrieved 17 May 2019 from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/chameleon-camouflage- color-change-myth-news/
Ministry for The Environment. (2017). Recycling: Cost benefit analysis (CR 14). Retrieved from New Zealand Government website: https://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/environmental- reporting/waste-generation-and-disposal-new-zealand
The Ellen Macarthur Foundation. (2015). CE100: Copenhagen Acceleration Workshop – A Summary [Report]. Retrieved 17 May 2019 from https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloa ds/CE100-Acceleration-Workshop-Copenhagen-2015-Summary.pdf