| If the research by a West Australian trio is an indication, you may soon be wearing fashion designer clothes made from wine. University of Western Australia researchers Gary Cass, Donna Franklin and Alan Mullett have grown a dress from the bacterial skin that forms on top of red wine that has gone off, reports news.com.au. They hope it will become the next big thing in fashion.
Their creation smells like wine and feels like sludge when it's wet. But the cotton-like cellulose creation fits as snugly as a second skin, claim the scientists.
The trio grew the dress as part of a collaborative arts and science project called Micro'be', designed to use science to convert wine into a cellulose product.
Cass, the team scientist, said the ultimate goal was to produce a wearable seamless garment that formed itself without a single stitch. "The product is very delicate, comprising micro-fibrils of cellulose, the material that forms green plants' cell walls," he said.
"A non-hazardous, non-pathogenic bacterium, five microns in size, produces this material, which is more like tissue paper than cotton."
The inspiration came after he noticed a skin-like layer covering a vat of wine that had been contaminated with bacteria.
The trio hopes the discovery could mark the start of fabrics fermented by living microbes entering the multi-billion dollar fabric manufacturing industry.
For full report, visit http://www.news.com.au
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