HOW IS BACTERIA DYE
EXPLORED COMMERCIALLY? When researching companies that are currently working and exploring bacterial dyes, there are namely six that come up on the search. These are Faber Futures, Vienna Textile Labs, Living Colour, PILI, Colorifix (Nisar, 2021) and Huue (previously known as Tinctorium) (Warren, 2021). 1) Faber Futures Faber Futures is a London-based award-winning agency operating at the intersection of nature, design, technology and society (Faber Futures, 2021). Faber Futures was launched in 2018 with the aim of helping other researchers and companies harness the power of living organisms to develop sustainable materials. Natsai Audrey Chieza, founder and CEO of Faber Futures, has been working with the bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor on textiles since 2011. This microorganism produces a pigmented compound in pink, purple, and blue hues. “It dyes textiles in a colourfast manner with barely any water and no chemicals… In many ways, that’s the definition of a natural dye.” Chieza says in an interview with WIRED Magazine (Turk, 2018). 2) Vienna Textile Labs Karin Fleck is the founder of Vienna Textile Lab. Fleck studied technical chemistry at TU Wien in Austria and later worked at several energy companies in the Netherlands and Germany. Fleck was introduced to bacteria as a textile dyeing medium when she met Cecilia Raspanti, founder of Textile Lab Amsterdam
(Suntinger, 2019). Vienna Textile Lab is currently focusing on researching how to make the dyeing process scalable to meet the needs of the fashion industry. In an interview with Lampoon Magazine, Fleck explains, “What we are doing here is trying to give an alternative, producing less toxic colours, so that workers in dyeing processes are less exposed to chemicals and hazardous substances” (Bellotto, 2021). 3) Living Colour Living Colour is a biodesign research project exploring the possibilities of natural textile dyeing with bacteria that produce pigment. The Dutch women behind this project are Laura Luchtman & Ilfa Siebenhaar (Living Colour, n.d.). Their research explored the possibilities of using sound frequencies to enhance the bacteria growth on textiles for pigments (Luchtman & Siebenhaar, 2017). They had also partnered up with Puma on a bacteria dyed sportswear collection called Design to Fade, exhibited at the biodesign exhibition at Milan Design Week. Unfortunately, none of these projects reached a commercial stage (Kukka, 2020). 13
