Materials biography as a tool for designers exploration of bio-based and bio-fabricated materials for the sustainable fashion industry

The fashion industry is highly responsible for critical environmental problems and the sectoris increasingly aware of the urgent need to embark on a sustainable transition. Materials, pri-marily textiles, are particularly problematic for the sector’s unsustainability, despite the inten-sive research into alternative solutions that is currently underway. This article presents acomprehensive analysis of these socio-environmental challenges and describes how govern-ments, industry, and designers are seeking to address the situation. Furthermore, it identifiesa panorama of alternative bio-based and bio-fabricated materials that could facilitate thetransition toward more sustainable fashion. We present a selection of 24 case studies ofnewly developed bio-based and bio-fabricated materials and group them by their origin.Analysis of the cases led to the delineation of five“materials biography categories”to helpunderstand the prominent narratives and to communicate their characteristics and funda-mental attributes. This taxonomy also serves to support concepts for a circular economy byhelping to build a sort of“material passport”or“product biography,”two concepts under-pinning the outcome of this study, and emphasizes the need for tools to further the com-munication and traceability of these emergent materials. We propose“materials biography,”an overarching idea that catalogues essential dimensions and offer it to designers, compa-nies, and final users to enhance their perception and awareness of such novel materials.