Knitted Algea Sweater

The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York has always been on the forefront of innovative design and technology. A group of students has developed a biologically derived filament that is composed of alginate, a polysaccharide that can be found in the cell walls of brown algae. And guess what : it can be knitted by hand or on a machine to make sweaters or what else not. The students were surprised that the material turned out to be elastic. The material is biodegradable and could create a closed loop economy for the fashion industry. "By realizing the true cost of textile and apparel production, we must apply both creative and logic thinking to solve this problem. The ultimate goal is to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and toxic waste created by textile productions," state these truly inventive students: Tessa Callaghan, Gian Cui, Aleksandra Gosiewski, Aaron Nesser, Theanne Schiros, and Asta Skocir.