“Innovation doesn’t always mean invention, sometimes it means looking into the past”

As we begin to embrace a more conscious approach to fashion, it is quite mesmerising how ancient wisdom aligns so perfectly with sustainability. The movement isn’t reinventing the wheel, it is a rediscovery of what our ancestors already knew. And that, I think, is quite beautiful.

Somewhere along the way we forgot knowledge that was once second nature. We got caught up in big machines and unforgiving fabrics. So picture our ancestors instead: wandering through the natural world, discovering the quiet potential of the plants all around them, crafting garments meant to be treasured and to last for years. This was never called “sustainability.” It was born from a deep, symbiotic relationship with nature, living in harmony with one another, an ethos of giving and receiving.

This movement has lit a beautiful spark within craftsmanship, reigniting something in the individual designer as they meet the modern world.1 We are making timeless pieces again, and they have grown so much more interesting for it. It is clear to me that building a gentler future is, in truth, about reconnecting with our roots.

A more-than-human way of knowing

It is no secret that when scientific and Indigenous communities work in partnership, they build a brighter future together. Respecting and embracing Indigenous rights and knowledge is something that deserves to be addressed at a systemic level. Indigenous communities relate to the world through a multi-dimensional awareness of their environments and of non-human beings —

“… embodying the concept that nature is an aware agency unto herself, to which humans are intimately linked.”2

Much of this knowledge was lost through colonialism, and most likely through the silencing of the great women who once ruled the textile world, never given the chance to be remembered. For a long time, colonial and mainstream research dismissed these ideas as unconvincing and anecdotal. Only now, with real urgency, is environmental science beginning to grasp what Indigenous communities have always known: that Mother Nature is a living entity, and that we are a part of her. Aboriginal mapping, for instance, can suggest entirely different approaches to urban design, grounded in the holistic understanding that we humans are not the only ones we should be designing for.3

Fish skin: leather, remembered

When I think about a more-than-human approach to the circular economy in fashion, one material comes straight to mind: fish skin leather. It has been used for centuries by people all over the world, in particular the Inuit of Alaska, Siberian peoples such as the Nivkh and Nanai, the Ainu of Japan, and the Icelanders. Like so much else, the knowledge largely disappeared through colonialism and forced assimilation. And then fashion rediscovered it.

Within the Inuit community, waste is seen as a sign of disrespect. So when salmon is on the menu, the skin is washed, tanned, and worked until it behaves like leather. Durable. Strong. Odourless. And, of course, waterproof.

Here is the part worth sitting with. Every tonne of filleted fish produces roughly 40 kilograms of skin, typically turned into animal feed, cosmetics, or simply tossed into landfill. Globally, we eat around 150 million tonnes of fish each year, close to 6 million tonnes of skin. An enormous circular resource, hiding in plain sight.

It was while studying at Fabricademy in Amsterdam that I was first introduced to fish skin. My very talented, beautiful friend Flora showed us the ropes of working with this remarkable material, and she continues to show how it can live within interiors and fashion today. Check out the queen of fish skin, Flora, you will not be disappointed.

Are all weeds really so bad?

There are other forgotten fibres returning to the scene, too, enough to make you wonder whether every weed deserves its reputation. Take nettle. It grows almost everywhere, and it has one unusual gift: it is available all year round. BioFluff’s Savian, a plant-based fur, is made from exactly this kind of overlooked abundance: nettle, hemp and flax.

Colour, drawn from the living world

“Plants, food waste, bacteria, insects, soils and minerals, algae, mosses and lichens, all are abundant with colour that can be released as dyes, pigments and inks.”

Plants can be spun into fibre, fibre into yarn, yarn into beautiful textiles. But plants offer something more, too: an almost infinite supply of colour. And the colours drawn from them feel more vibrant, more precious, than any synthetic shade could ever be.

For ten years, Waag Futurelab has researched textiles and natural dye-making from its TextileLab, in the heart of Amsterdam. The exhibition Chromatic Relations of Local Color gathers this legacy together, framing the urban environment itself as a potential source of natural colour.

Ayurvastra: cloth that was meant to heal

Then there is Ayurvastra: the art of creating textiles from natural fibres and dyeing them with medicinal herbs, a time-honoured practice that offers beautiful, vibrant fabric while weaving holistic health into everyday wear.5 The name comes from the Sanskrit Ayur (life) and Vastra (clothing). It originated more than 5,000 years ago in India, its core principles rooted in the Vedas. Clothing prepared this way was traditionally believed to ease conditions including diabetes, skin infections, psoriasis, hypertension, asthma, arthritis and eczema.6

Historical evidence suggests that fibres processed with medicinal herbs were once worn by warriors beneath their armour, to help heal their wounds. In some traditions, mantras were chanted during production, infusing the fabric with positive intention. Each garment made on purpose, and with purpose.

Cloth carries culture

Textiles are so much more than materials. They carry the history, the values and the customs of the people who make them. According to UNESCO, Indigenous textiles form an integral part of a community’s intangible heritage, each design telling stories of ancestry, status and ritual.7 Anthropological studies echo this, showing how textiles are bound up with the great thresholds of a life: birth, marriage, initiation. Proof of how deeply woven cloth and culture really are.

Looking back, to move forward

Maybe this is what looking into the past really offers us, not nostalgia, but instruction. The fish skin, the nettle, the herbs, the dye drawn from a city’s own weeds: none of it is new. It is remembered. If we want a gentler future for fashion, perhaps we don’t need to invent our way there at all.

We may simply need to listen, to the materials, to the land, and to the people who understood, long before we did, that we were never the only ones worth designing for.

References & Bibliography

1. 01 “From Ancient Fibers to Fashion: How Traditional Textiles Shape Modern Style.” ↩
2. 02 “Nature as an aware agency.” ScienceDirect. sciencedirect.com ↩
3. 03 “More-Than-Human Perspective in Indigenous Cultures: Holistic Systems Informing Computational Models in Architecture, Urban and Landscape Design towards the Post-Anthropocene Epoch.” ResearchGate. researchgate.net ↩
4. 04 Waag Futurelab, Local Color Amsterdam & Chromatic Relations of Local Color, TextileLab. waag.org ↩
5. 05 “Ayurvastra (herbal textiles): benefits, manufacturing, and sustainable fashion with medicinal herbs.” ↩
6. 06 “Application of Natural Dyes for Herbal Textiles.” (PDF.) ↩
7. 07 “Reclaiming Heritage: The Revival of Indigenous Textiles and Craftsmanship in Contemporary Fashion.” IJOIS. ijois.com ↩