Bio-hacking Fashion: A Study on 2.5 Dimensional Fashion Pattern Cutting and Bacterial Dyes

There is a growing need for sustainable fashion since the 2010s. As artists and designers explore the potential use of innovative materials developed by synthetic biology and DIY bio-hacking, recent practice-led research in fashion design aims at building the better relationship between ecological sustainability and biotechnology to cope with the limited resources available on the earth. Based on this issue on the material sustainability, this practice-led research analyzes the current production processes of the fashion industry to propose possible solutions by incorporating emerging biotechnology and fashion design in the context of sustainable design.As the methodology, the authors adopt two processes to make bio-garment. First, the experiment of DIY bio has been conducted for culturing ecological bio-material SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) that produces bacterial cellulose. The material has similar properties to leather. Second, designing the garment through 3D modeling has been tackled because we aim to make the bio-materials grow onto a 3D printed mold as ‘zero waste method’, which can eliminate textile waste at the design stage.