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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Lucianne Tonti

Petri-dish leather and silk spun from sugar: could future fashion be grown in a lab?

Livia Firth United States
Strands of different coloured silk yarn in test tubes.
Strands of Spiber Inc’s synthetic ‘spider silk’. The Japanese company has since developed ‘brewed protein’ yarns and fibres that can be made into fleece, denim and fur. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Developing cleaner sources for raw materials is essential to reducing fashion’s (alarming) contribution to global heating.

With this in mind, start-ups and scientists are racing to recreate diamonds, silk and leather in laboratories.

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