Dutch studio AMO emphasised the "paradoxical dichotomy" between office interiors and the natural world for the Prada Autumn Winter 2024 menswear show, which featured a plexiglass runway above grass and streams.

AMO, the research and creative studio of architecture office OMA, created the scenography for the 14 January show at the Rem Koolhaas-designed Fondazione Prada during Milan Fashion Week.

The arts centre's Deposito space was covered with forest-like swathes of real grass interspersed with rocks, pebbles, leaves and running water to emulate natural streams.

In stark contrast, AMO constructed a clear plexiglass runway mounted onto a gridded structure that was positioned above the unmanicured grass.

"The studio created a set design juxtaposing an office interior with a natural landscape," said Prada, which is headquartered in Milan.

Uniform rows of familiar black swivel chairs snaked across the geometric runway, providing seating for the guests and creating pathways for the models.

Embedded in the ceiling, office-style strip lighting was reflected across the plexiglass in rigid patterns, while mist was released into the space for an atmospheric effect.

On the edges of the set, AMO installed walls formed from recognisably corporate blue panels, often found in office environments.

One section, where guests entered the runway, featured whole booths created with the panels, complete with large desks, swivel chairs and desktop computers emblazoned with the Prada logo on their otherwise blank screens.

Presented by the fashion house's co-creative directors, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, the show's looks echoed the contrasting scenography.

Classic suit-and-tie pairings finished in neutral textiles were combined with more vibrant pieces such as swimming caps and goggle-like sunglasses crafted as a nod to the outdoors.

"This collection is about something basic – the emotional instinct to remain attached to something we know, the cycles of nature," said Prada.

"There is a simple assertion, of a deep and essential human need to connect with the world around us," continued the brand.

"Demonstrating the paradoxical dichotomy between two coexisting worlds [offices and nature], this show explores fundamental truths of humanity, our natural instincts and our emotional needs."

Longtime-collaborators AMO and Prada have been creating catwalks together at Fondazione Prada since 2004, including the brand's previous Autumn Winter menswear show, which took place below a retractable ceiling that moved to reveal a series of art deco chandeliers.

More recently, the studio also designed the scenography for Prada's Spring Summer 2024 menswear show – an aluminium-clad space with slime falling from the ceiling to form liquid walls.

The photography and video are courtesy of Prada.

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Coats that convert into cushions and scarves that can be worn as hats feature in the latest collection from fashion brand Issey Miyake, created in collaboration with French designer Ronan Bouroullec.

Presented during the Homme Plissé Issey Miyake Autumn Winter 2024 menswear show in Paris, the collection reinterprets Bouroullec's growing body of abstract drawings into a collection of garments and accessories.

The collaboration with Homme Plissé Issey Miyake, an offshoot of Japanese fashion house Issey Miyake, comes after Bouroullec told Dezeen in an interview last year that he had turned down numerous requests from fashion designers who were keen to use his artworks.

"I didn't want my drawings to be used as patterns," he said at the time.

Instead, the new collection focused more on translating the spirit of the various artworks, according to the design team at Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.

"The interpretation of creative visuals goes beyond turning them into motifs and patterns," the team explained.

"The body of work acts as ingredients to be incorporated into the design and making of the collection, forming a harmonious creative process."

The gradient strokes of Bouroullec's felt-tip drawings, for example, were transposed onto garments fashioned from the brand's signature pleated fabric, which were cut into asymmetrical silhouettes to correspond to the blank spaces found on the page.

Elsewhere in the collection, these felt-tip brush strokes were silkscreen-printed in layers onto all-white outerwear or translated into scarfs made from multi-coloured yarn.

Strategic head and arm holes were added to these scarfs, so they can be worn in various configurations and even function as a turban-style hat.

"The items are knitted with multi-colored yarn and have holes in considered places, allowing them to be wrapped and worn in multiple ways by passing the head or arms through them, creating wearable art," the brand said.

Bouroullec's Stylo-Bille works, which are painted with a ballpoint pen, called for a different approach and were realised through precise embroidery and a traditional Gobelins tapestry weaving technique.

The latter was used to form giant square pockets fixed to the outside of several puffer coats, which the garment can be stuffed into when not in use, effectively turning it into a cushion.

"As a cushion, the colours of the work are replicated as per the original drawing," explained Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. "And when worn as a coat, the colours are inverted, offering a different colour scheme."

A series of pleated ensembles based on Bouroullec's All Over prints hopes to capture the immersive feeling of the artworks with their blocky colours and dense stripes.

"The original drawing is filled with countless lines, creating a pattern so lively that the wearers could imagine immersing themselves in, as opposed to viewing it at a distance," the design team explained.

This idea was translated into voluminous garments with extended shoulders, sleeves and hems that can be draped over the body.

The collection was shown inside the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, on a runway reminiscent of a gallery, where Bouroullec's original drawings were pinned up next to flattened versions of the garments to further blur the boundary between art and fashion.

"It was an extraordinary experience to work with the design team, where I discovered many things over the course of the creative session about what my work has in common and in contrast with their clothing design," Bouroullec said.

"And it is the synergy as well as the distance between us that have made this project both inspiring and rewarding."

Both the drawings and the collaboration with Homme Plissé Issey Miyake are part of a growing body of solo work from Bouroullec, as his collaboration with brother Erwan Bouroullec as part of their joint design studio has come to an end.

Just last year, the designer created a set of pared-back furnishings for a 17th-century chapel in Brittany as part of a restoration project financed by François Pinault, founder of luxury fashion group Kering.

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At Fendi's autumn winter 24 menswear show in Milan, the fashion house unveiled sneakers and handbags designed by MAD Architects founder Ma Yansong as an "extension of the experience of architecture and the city".

Yansong's debut excursion into fashion design saw the architect develop a range of accessories defined by the same sinuous lines as his buildings.

His take on Fendi's classic Peekaboo bag features dramatic slashes across the front, inlaid with pieces of varnished aluminium that peek out through the gaps. Aluminium was also used to form the bag's double-curved handle, designed to fit neatly into the palm of a hand.

Matching slip-on trainers feature a curvaceous injection-moulded sole, accented by glossy air bubbles and eyestays.

"It's my first time designing shoes and bags," Yansong told Dezeen. "I'm always interested in designing something closer to the people."

"That's also my understanding of architecture. I think it's always about how people use the space, the feel of the space and about their emotions."

Created under the creative direction of Silvia Venturini Fendi – Fendi's artistic director of accessories and menswear – both products are available in either a monochrome black colourway or in metallic grey with bright yellow detailing.

Although new to fashion, Yansong has long experimented with designing smaller-scale objects, whether reimagining Dior's Medallion chair or releasing a range of idiosyncratic homeware pieces from rugs to fish tanks.

"Maybe in the future, I want to design more furniture or more clothes," Yansong said. "Maybe automobiles. Really, everything around our lives that needs design."

"I think those are extensions of the experience of architecture and the city. So maybe the designers should be more multi-disciplinary, working more based on human experience not just in the traditional categories that divide our profession."

The collaboration is the latest in a line of "progressive partnerships" from Fendi that hope to "align the worlds of fashion and architecture".

Just last year, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma created a collection of accessories for the brand from tree bark and washi paper, while the late Zaha Hadid created a many-layered version of the Peekaboo bag as part of a charity auction in 2014.

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Fashion retailer Aro Archive's pastel-hued east London store was designed by founder Ariana Waiata Sheehan to evoke "a sense of otherworldliness".

The store, located in Shoreditch, replaces the brand's previous, more industrial store on nearby Broadway Market and was intended to have a frivolous feel.

The interior has "a sense of otherworldliness, escapism and fun," Waiata Sheehan explains, comparing it to "a mixture between a mushroom trip and going to visit someone's rich aunty who runs a gallery".

"We've always had very neutral industrial spaces," she told Dezeen. |But you can get an industrial Zara these days, so time to switch it up and go full personality, which has been scary but so worth it."

Located inside a five-storey former Victorian warehouse, Aro Archive, which sells pre-owned clothing by avant-garde designers, was organised so that each floor has a different colour.

Monochrome pastel pink, blue and white hues decorate the different levels, which also feature a wide range of reclaimed and recycled materials, furniture and artworks.

"The pink floor is supposed to feel very warm, womb-like and enclosed," Waiata Sheehan said. "The blue floor is more light and otherworldly. And the two white floors are very ethereal and calm."

White duvet covers by fashion house Maison Martin Margiela were used to create curtains for the changing rooms, while interior pillars are made from reclaimed 1990s metal lamp posts that the designer sourced from a scrapyard in Preston.

"The building and surrounding area feel very London, so we did want to bring in a sense of that for example with the lamp posts, metal works and details, bright neon lights and so forth," Waiata Sheehan said.

She sourced a number of unusual furnishings for the Aro Archive store, including an industrial control station from a paper-manufacturing plant that is now used as a till.

"The industrial paper control station I've been watching on eBay for nearly 4 years, waiting for a time I had the space to buy it," Waiata Sheehan explained. "I wanted something different to the normal till, they're all so boring and square."

The store also has another large metal till and metal drawers that originally came from a 1980s Mary Quant store and were rescued from a squat in Hackney Wick.

Waiata Sheehan also sourced several smaller pieces for the boutique, where customers can purchase everything down to the artwork, furniture and accessories.

"I do all the buying so everything is here because I love it in some way," she explained. "But in terms of favourite pieces in store right now?"

"For fashion, it's the Rick Owens orange shearling gimp mask gilet, for objects the Shirin Guild ceramic incense holders and for furniture the wobbly glass table with magazine racks."

Waiata Sheehan hopes the Aro Archive boutique will feel like a home away from home and help to create a community feel in the area.

"I think Shoreditch is lacking a sense of community and I wanted to work that into the space," she said. "The feeling of a chaotic family home and a feeling of togetherness."

Other London stores with notable interior design recently covered on Dezeen include Swedish fashion brand Toteme's newly-opened Mayfair store and a Coach pop-up store at Selfridges that had fixtures made from recyclable materials.

The photography is by John Munro.

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Shoe brand Vivobarefoot and material science company Balena have created a prototype trainer that is 3D-printed from compostable materials.

Unveiled today at materials conference Biofabricate, the mono-material shoe was 3D-printed from a compostable, thermoplastic material created by Balena.

Described by Vivobarefoot as "scan-to-print-to-soil", the product will be created in a "fully automated process – scanned on phone and automatically printed". The shoes were designed to be composted in an industrial facility.

The company believes that the shoe will form part of a process of rethinking the current industrialised system of designing, manufacturing and disposing of trainers.

"Whilst the current system might have been fit for the early part of industrialisation, it's definitely not fit for the future" Vivobarefoot co-founder Asher Clark told Dezeen.

"In contrast to that, our goal is to create a flagship solution – one that's on demand, rather than from stock. We want it to be fast, digital, simple and ultimately an additive process," he continued.

"We want to build a system that creates product when you need using the only the materials you need when you need it, as opposed to an industrial system that's making huge mountains of stock with subtractive processes."

The trainers build on Vivobarefoot's VivoBiome shoes, which are also 3D-printed based on scans of user's feet, but are made from more traditional materials. Currently 176 "paying pioneers" are testing the first generation of the red VivoBiome shoes.

Vivobarefoot's on-demand "scan-to-print" process sees customers scan their own feet to create shoes that are much more fitted to the shape of an individual's feet.

"All of our feet are different in shape," said Clark. "So even if we want to make the perfect footwear, perfect feet, it's incredibly difficult to do that in a one-size-fits-all industrial model."

The prototype shoes were made from BioCirflex, which was developed by Balena, and complies with international biodegradation standard ASTM D6400-04 and European biodegradation standard EN 13432.

Although the product is biodegradable and compostable, it was not designed to be composted in a back garden. Vivobarefoot expects the product to be composted in an industrial facility, and establishing this process will be one of the tasks that need to be set up before a mass launch.

"The polymers will biodegrade in any compost environment," Balena founder David Roubach told Dezeen.

"In a compost environment you have specific enzymes that know to digest the monomers and it's the same enzymes you have in industrial and the same one you will have in your home compost," he continued.

"But it is not enough just to tailor the material, or to know how it will break down, you need also to work with a brand to really build an infrastructure for circularity."

"So legally, we can say yes, put it in your home compost, and it will biodegrade. But the truth is that we don't know how long it will take and we don't know if you have a compost in your garden," he continued.

"As a material science company, we understand that part of our responsibility is also to build the logic circle behind the material."

The trainers form part of Vivobarefoot's wider aim to radically change the footwear business as it believes that heavily cushioned shoes are damaging people's feet. It aims to create shoes using as little material as possible.

"Millions of years of evolution have done an amazing job – your feet are amazing bits of kit, we like this idea that the best bit of technology to go into a shoe is the human foot," said Clark.

"What we're trying to do is make is shoes that follow your feet, we're trying to make as little footwear as possible, to allow your feet to do what they were designed to do," he continued.

"Shoes aren't just trashing your health, all that fancy underfoot, cushioning and support that you're used to under your feet is actually making them shoe shaped and weak, which negatively impacts the way you move and ultimately negatively impacts your health."

Clark believes that the majority of "shoes are trashing your feet and the planet". Along with reducing the amount of material that goes into shoes and considering what happens at the end of their life, he believes that the whole manufacturing process needs to radically change.

"Shoes are made in offshore industrial supply chains that have huge environmental costs," he said.

"They're subtractive, which means that the way industrialisation works is that you're cutting away lots of material – there's lots of waste in order to get to a product, so ultimately, this whole process is slow, its analogue," he continued.

"It's also complicated, there's multiple layers to the supply chain and it's almost impossible to get your hands around in terms of the true environmental impact. But it's ultimately wasteful by design."

Brands that have launched footwear described as biodegradable include Bottega Veneta with its sugarcane and coffee boots and Adidas with the uppers of its Futurecraft trainers.

A more experimental composition came from German designer Emilie Burfeind, whose compostable sneakers are made with a mushroom mycelium sole and a canine hair upper.

Images courtesy of Vivobarefoot.

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Schiaparelli gowns with faux taxidermied animal heads and a microscopic Louis Vuitton handbag feature in this year's top 10 fashion moments, which continues our 2023 review.

In an era that rewards viral trends and prominent brand collaborations, designers have continued to push the boundaries of fashion this year.

From striking clothing and footwear to memorable bags and store installations, here are Dezeen's top 10 fashion moments of 2023:

Plasticine clothes by JW Anderson

British fashion house JW Anderson presented hoodies and tailored shorts crafted entirely out of plasticine as part of its Spring Summer 2024 womenswear show during London Fashion Week.

Sculpted and hardened into rigid but wearable forms, the clay clothes were designed to put "playfulness in pragmatism and pragmatism in playfulness", according to the brand.

Find out more about these clothes ›

Microscopic Louis Vuitton handbag by MSCHF

Art collective MSCHF caused a stir by unveiling a 3D-printed Louis Vuitton bag that it called "smaller than a grain of salt", created to critique luxury fashion.

Made of neon-green photopolymer resin, the miniature bag was designed to question the functionality of increasingly small handbags produced by the fashion industry.

Find out more about this bag ›

Faux taxidermied gowns by Schiaparelli 

French fashion house Schiaparelli kicked off Paris Couture Week with a collection defined by three gowns, which looked as if they had been taxidermied from the bodies of a lion, a snow leopard and a black wolf.

Despite their hyper-realistic appearance, the brand used hand-sculpted foam, silk faux fur, resin and wool to create the much-discussed hand-painted dresses.

Find out more about these gowns ›

Yayoi Kusama for Louis Vuitton

To mark a capsule collection created in collaboration with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, Louis Vuitton positioned an oversized inflatable sculpture of Kusama atop its Champs-Élysées store in Paris.

Select Louis Vuitton outlets across the world featured similar installations including life-like and human-scale animatronics of the artist, which were placed in window displays with the robotic replica of Kusama repeatedly painting her trademark polka-dots onto the surface of the glass.

Find out more about these installations ›

BioSequin jumpsuit by Stella McCartney

This skin-tight all-in-one by Stella McCartney was embellished with hundreds of shimmering discs called BioSequins, an alternative to the petroleum-based plastic options on the market.

Developed by biomaterials company Radiant Matter, the iridescent sequins were created from renewable polymer cellulose extracted from trees, which naturally reflects light and makes the sequins sparkle.

Find out more about this jumpsuit ›

Big Red Boots (Yellow) by MSCHF and Crocs

MSCHF teamed up with footwear brand Crocs to design a pair of jumbo yellow boots punctuated by the recognisable holes that define Crocs' Classic Clogs.

Called Big Red Boots (Yellow), the shoes are the latest iteration of oversized boots by the art collective, which previously created a similar pair of red boots modelled on those worn by the manga character Astro Boy.

Find out more about Big Red Boots (Yellow) ›

Rotated gowns by Viktor & Rolf

Tulle ballgowns characterised by "surreal" sideways and upside-down silhouettes were presented by Dutch fashion house Viktor & Rolf as part of its Haute Couture Spring Summer 2023 show during Paris Couture Week.

Called Late Stage Capitalism Waltz, the 18 ballgowns were 3D-printed and designed to invert "a singular and narrowly defined 'fashion ideal'," according to the fashion house.

Find out more about these gowns ›

Rewild the Run by Kiki Grammatopoulos

Rewild the Run is a project by Central Saint Martins graduate Kiki Grammatopoulous, who created chunky, bristly outsoles for trainers that help to spread plants and seeds in cities.

Densely covered in tiny hooks that grip onto dirt and plant matter as the wearer treads, the shoes mimic the natural phenomenon of epizoochory, where seeds are transported by becoming attached to an animal's fur.

Find out more about Rewild the Run ›

Architecture-informed handbags by Frank Gehry for Louis Vuitton

Last week's design fair Art Basel Miami Beach saw Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry release 11 limited-edition handbags for Louis Vuitton.

Gehry designed a trio of sculptural bags, which he designed based on the form and finish of three of his best-known buildings – the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Find out more about these handbags ›

Uno bra by Katy Marks

Breast-cancer survivor and architect Katy Marks of Citizens Design Bureau created a collection of one-cup bras and bikinis after her own single mastectomy.

Designed for women to feel "confidently asymmetric", Uno fills a distinct gap in the market for one-cup bras that do not compromise on comfort or style, according to Marks.

Find out more about Uno bra ›

2023 review

This article is part of Dezeen's roundup of the biggest and best news and projects in architecture, design, interior design and technology from 2023.

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Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry has unveiled 11 limited-edition handbags for fashion brand Louis Vuitton at Art Basel Miami Beach during Miami art week.

Named Louis Vuitton x Frank Gehry, the collection contains bags informed by the Canadian-American architect's buildings and by animals.

They were displayed at Art Basel Miami Beach in an installation featuring several of Gehry's previous pieces for the brand.

For the collection, Gehry reimagined a trio of Louis Vuitton Capucines bags based on the form and finish of some of his best-known buildings.

The Capucines BB Shimmer Haze bag has a shimmering, translucence finish made from six panels of Plexiglas, informed by the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, while the Capucines MM Concrete Pockets bag was designed with a multi-layered calfskin finish to evoke the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

The IAC Building in New York informed the Capucines BB Analog Bag, which has angled-leather sections screen-printed with sections of the building's facade.

Three more Louis Vuitton Capucines bags were reinvented with the addition of animals, including a pair featuring fish.

The Capucines MM Fish bag was informed by a fish-shaped lighting feature that Gehry created for the Foundation Louis Vuitton in 2014. It was recreated in bag form with a multi-toned red fish made from leather placed on the bag's smooth white leather exterior.

Alongside this, the white crocodile leather Capucines Mini Drawn Fish bag has a sketch of a fish by Gehry embroidered on it.

The other two animal-informed bags feature smaller interpretations of Gehry's previous sculptures. He reinterpreted a crocodile sculpture designed for London restaurant Sexy Fish as the brass handle of the Capucines BB Croc bag, which has a Taurillon leather exterior covered with an abstract yellow print.

While the Bear With Us Clutch is a bear-shaped bag that is a miniature version of the life-sized Bear with Us sculpture that Gehry created in 2014 and is now on display at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Two further Capucines bags – the Capucines Mini Puzzle and Capucines Mini Blossom – feature colourful petal-like forms.

The Capucines Mini Puzzle is covered in hand-painted, interlocking petals made from lambskin, while the Capucines Mini Blossom has three petals made from glass-like resin that were informed by Gehry's Les Extraits perfume bottles for Louis Vuitton.

For the final two pieces in the collection, Gehry revisited his Twisted Box bag, which was designed as part of the Celebrating Monogram series created in 2014 to mark Louis Vuitton's 160th anniversary.

The bag, which features the brand's monogram embossed onto a leather exterior, was recreated in black and silver.

According to Gehry, he aimed to experiment and have fun with the collection.

"It's not something I usually do – handbags – so it's a search for ideas," he said. "Every creative person goes through that, it's very similar to making a movie, shooting a rocket to the moon."

"There are very various levels of creativity and the expertise you bring to it are years of experience and in my case I've built a lot of buildings so I can shorthand stuff – I've been having a lot of fun at my young age of 94," he continued.

Alongside the bags, the installation featured numerous sketches and models of the architect's work alongside previous items designed for the brand including the A Tea Party for Louis trunk, which was created for the 200 Trunks, 200 Visionaries exhibition, and the Les Extraits perfume bottles.

The photography is courtesy of Louis Vuitton, unless stated.

Miami art week takes place from 6 to 19 December in Miami, US. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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A grape-based leather alternative and sequins made from tree cellulose are among 15 material innovations on show as part of fashion house Stella McCartney's exhibition at the COP28 climate conference.

In partnership with Stella McCartney's parent company LVMH, the Sustainable Market showcases "the possibilities of current cutting-edge or soon-to-be available technologies" that could transform the fashion industry.

The 15 chosen innovators range from start-ups to established brands, providing plant-based alternatives to plastic, animal leather and fur as well as regenerative alternatives to traditional fibres.

"The fashion industry accounts for eight per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions," McCartney said. "We need to get creative and innovative with alternatives, moving beyond the limited materials that the industry has been working with traditionally."

"If we can work collaboratively with these goals, we can actually begin doing business in a way that regenerates our planet instead of only taking from it."

Among the featured companies is Radiant Matter, which produces plastic-free iridescent BioSequins, and Mango Materials, which transforms captured methane emissions into plastic as seen in Allbirds' Moonshot trainers.

US start-up Natural Fiber Welding is presenting its plant-based leather alternative Mirum, which has already been used across Stella McCartney's Falabella and Frayme bags as well as a series of fragrance-infused jackets by MCQ.

The Sustainable Market also showcases examples of finished products including crochet dresses and bags by Stella McCartney that are made using seaweed-based Kelsun yarn and the first-ever garment crafted from biologically recycled polyester by US company Protein Evolution.

Another stall highlights Stella McCartney's collaboration with Veuve Clicquot to develop a grape-based leather using waste from the champagne house's harvest.

The Sustainable Market also highlights three student projects from the Maison/0 incubator at design school Central Saint Martins, which is supported by LVMH.

Automating Violacein by Charlotte Werth explores how an automated microbial dye process can be used to produce printed patterns for luxury textiles.

Other projects examine how bacteria, algae and food waste could offer bio-based alternatives to synthetic dyes, and how lab-grown keratin fibres could be used for luxury clothing.

The products are displayed in market stalls featuring 3D-printed walls infused with a compound by Spanish materials company Pure Tech, which it claims can remove CO2 and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air by converting them into harmless mineral particles.

Other brands invited to participate in the market include US company Brimstone, which claims to have created "the world's first carbon-negative portland cement", and Chargeurs Luxury Fibers, which produces wool using regenerative farming methods.

McCartney was asked to represent the fashion industry at COP28 to advocate for policy and regulatory change to incentivise sustainable business and the decarbonisation of the industry.

Her delegation also seeks to promote human and animal welfare while building a coalition of global government and business leaders to scale investment in material innovations.

Recently named among Time magazine's 100 most influential climate leaders, McCartney bills her eponymous brand as the world's first luxury fashion house to never use animal leather, feathers, fur or skins.

The Sustainable Market concept was first launched as part of her Summer 2024 runway show during Paris Fashion Week and will continue to evolve over the coming year following COP28.

The exhibition is taking place at the climate conference until 12 December in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Last year's Conference of the Parties (COP), which was held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, saw architect Norman Foster launch a set of sustainability principles for architects while a team of researchers developed an app that predicts damage to global cities from rising sea levels.

The event was described as "deeply depressing" by architect and engineer Smith Mordak in their opinion piece for Dezeen, with other architects and sustainability experts expressing frustration at the slow pace of global action to reduce carbon emissions.

The photography is courtesy of Stella McCartney.

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Following the opening of his first hotel in Portugal, French designer Christian Louboutin, famous for his red-soled shoes, discusses creativity and sustainability in this exclusive interview.

"The secret to good design – and it's a very basic answer – is to be true to yourself," Louboutin told Dezeen. "You can take advice from people but at the end, someone has to be the boss: someone has to decide. At one point, someone has to decide to stay true [to the original idea]."

Best known for his shoe design, Louboutin's career spans more than 40 years, across which he has remained true to his creative impulses.

"The most important thing is that it looks good"

These impulses have been most recently expressed in his latest venture, Vermelho – an opulent 13-room boutique hotel in the quiet Portuguese village of Melides, south of Lisbon, which he designed in collaboration with architect Madalena Caiado.

Louboutin cites the hotel as an example of always staying true to himself. He recounts telling the team "let's have a lot of chimneys – the kind that you see on the roofs in the south of Portugal – because it's very nice".

The architects tried, and found it difficult, to connect all the chimneys through to fireplaces in the rooms so that they would function as flues.

"I just want the roof with the chimneys," Louboutin told them. "We don't need working chimneys. It doesn't matter if they don't go where they should go – it's okay if it doesn't work!"

The team were concerned that purely ornamental chimneys, where form did not follow function, were problematic because "they are not useful", Louboutin recalls.

"But they're absolutely the most beautiful thing," he contended. "The most important thing is that it looks good. That's the most important thing at the end of the day."

"I could feel that I was a bit alone at the beginning going 'more chimneys! more chimneys!' – because they were really, completely useless. But it's fine to be useless, totally fine."

"You don't have to be useful all the time," the designer added. "The chimneys were definitely a decision that I took by myself. You sort of have to be perseverant. And when you are believing in something, you have to go for it."

"When you do something that you love, you will have never wasted your time"

Louboutin left home at the precocious age of 12, going on to design women's shoes for Charles Jourdan, Roger Vivier and Yves Saint Laurent before founding his own company in 1991.

The eponymous firm has since grown to a $2.7 billion business that incorporates the design of leather goods, pet accessories, perfume and beauty products.

Despite his enormous success – or perhaps because of it – Louboutin continues to seek pleasure in creative projects.

"When you do something that you love, even if it doesn't work, even if it's useless, as long as you have pleasure doing it and it pleases you, you will have never wasted your time," he said.

"If you do something that you don't really love, but you think 'oh it's better like this, it's more comfortable, it's more useful' and you don't really like it, at the end the level of satisfaction – yours and probably other people's – is way lower," he added.

"But also if it doesn't work, then you really have wasted your time."

While these principles have guided his design practice, the business landscape since the early '90s has changed significantly.

Louboutin, who turned 60 in January this year, continues to navigate them successfully. For instance, the brand has nearly 17 million followers on Instagram.

"Everything has definitely changed due to social media," the designer said. "When I first started, every brand name had a face which corresponded to the brand name. Yves Saint Laurent wore glasses and he was called Yves Saint Laurent. Givenchy had a person behind it called Hubert de Givenchy."

"The names are just the brands now," he went on. "It's a different ballgame, completely. I don't say if it's good or bad or whatever, I have no time for judging – but it's completely different and the sense of freedom has kind of disappeared."

Something else that has changed over the decades is the conversation around sustainability.

The Christian Louboutin business now has a whole department dedicated to sustainability, which he says attempts to look at "everything: how it's made, where it is made, where it's coming from, have people involved been well treated, et cetera – which is all important – but also discussing how to work in a better way".

"Sustainability is not only for products but is also to do with people," he added. "Sustainability comes back to respect."

Louboutin feels strongly that social sustainability and supporting creative industries in their indigenous setting is just as much a part of sustainability as the eco-credentials of materials and the supply chain.

"When there is a part of a shoe which features some carving that is made in a very specific place – let's say by artisans of a special region – in this instance, I always refuse to copy that savoir faire and go to a country which could, and in a cheaper way, copy it."

Louboutin has a track record of valuing craft and the handmade.

Caiado, the Portuguese architect who co-designed the Vermelho hotel, told Dezeen how, especially during the construction phase, Louboutin "brought a more tactile way of thinking – almost as if the hotel was designed at the scale of the hand of those who built it".

"Artisanship is really a very important part of the culture of countries – it speaks about people, about the culture or a part of a country, and it's a necessity to keep it alive," emphasised Louboutin.

"You cannot use artisanship by reproducing it elsewhere. Why? Because if you take the essence of artisanship from a specific place, and you give it to another place, to make it cheaper (which is the only real reason), you are basically starting to eat – and to destroy, a bit – the ecosystem of a region or country. Sustainability goes all the way to protecting artisanship."

"You may not like colours, but you still like red"

Over the years Louboutin has had to protect his own artisanship – and there have been several instances of litigation to prevent trademark infringement on his signature red sole.

But while it has become the designer's calling card, Louboutin does not feel the iconic red sole has pigeonholed his creative output or opportunities.

"Every creative project in itself is an exciting thing," he explained. "I don't have a projection of what I should do. Projects with me are pretty organic – there is no business plan."

Louboutin has never limited himself to shoe design – and while the colour red has become his signature, he insists it is not because of the success he found with it but because of his abiding passion for the hue that he continues to use it across his projects.

Vermelho, the name of the recently-opened hotel, is also the word for red in Portuguese.

"Red is a transition. It's such an emotional colour, but also it's not necessarily linked to colour. You may not like colours, but you still like red," Louboutin enthused.

"If I had to go back and choose another colour, I would still choose red. If I have to stick to one as an identity, I will still keep my red."

The lead image is by Jose Castellar.

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For years, sportswear brands Adidas and Nike have been competing to design record-beating running trainers. As Nike officially launches the Alphafly 3, Dezeen plots a brief timeline of the so-called battle of the super shoes.

Marathon records have tumbled in the last 20 years, with most experts agreeing that advancements in running-shoe technology have played a significant role.

Spurred on by the proximity of the first officially recognised sub-two-hour marathon, Adidas and Nike have invested heavily in developing the trainer that they hope will see their sponsored athletes break the elusive barrier in open competition.

The phenomenon gained particular attention recently after landmark records were broken in quick succession – first by a runner wearing Adidas and then by a Nike athlete just a fortnight later.

At times it has proved controversial, with claims that the focus on footwear amounts to "technological doping", but the trend shows little sign of slowing down.

Here are eight major moments in the super-shoe wars:

Adidas Adizero Adios, 2008

Exactly when the super-shoe era began depends on who you ask. Adidas would argue it dates back to around 2004, when the brand tasked Japanese shoe designer Toshiaki Omori with creating the perfect running trainer. Eschewing the contemporary preference for digital design, Omori prioritised using moulds of real feet to produce a shoe with the closest possible fit.

The result was the Adidas Adizero series. According to Adidas, Ethiopian long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie decided to wear the first prototype in the collection – the Adidas Adizero Adios – after trying them on in his hotel room the night before the Berlin Marathon in September 2008.

He would go on to break his own world record the next day by a significant margin of 29 seconds, becoming the first person to run a marathon in under two hours and four minutes. The two-hour barrier was suddenly much closer.

Adidas Adizero Boost 2, 2014 

Adidas's Adizero line came to dominate the marathon-running world for several years.

Kenyan Patrick Makau broke Gebrselassie's record in 2011 wearing the new-and-improved Adidas Adizero Adios 2, and two years later, his countryman Wilson Kipsang broke the record again with the help of the Adidas Adizero Boost. This shoe featured a newly developed cushioning system using thermoplastic polyurethane foam – a significant departure from the ethylene-vinyl acetate that had previously been favoured in running-shoe design.

Then, at the 2014 Berlin Marathon, Dennis Kimetto broke the record once again, this time in the Adidas Adizero Boost 2, which combined the traction and cushioning technology of the Boost with the more breathable mesh upper of the Adios 2. Kimetto became the first person to run the distance in under two hours and three minutes. The same shoes were on the feet of the second-placed men's finisher and the top two finishers in the women's race.

The next year, Adidas began developing the first shoe explicitly designed to shatter the two-hour marathon barrier – the Adidas Adizero Sub2. Released in 2017, it focused on incorporating the springy support of the Boost technology into a much lighter overall product.

However, the Adidas Adizero Sub2 was not able to achieve its goal. Instead, it was overshadowed by a rival release from Nike that would lead to a revolution in elite running-shoe design.

Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Elite, 2017 

Nike had been quietly working on a project of its own since 2014. Its research had led to two innovations: the extremely lightweight ZoomX foam, which allowed for an extra-thick sole, and the insertion of a curved carbon-fibre plate within the midsole that acted like a springboard.

Nike chose to distribute prototypes of the resulting shoes among its elite athletes in 2016 before the model had been released, and all three podium finishers in the men's marathon at the Olympics that year were wearing the prototypes.

It was not until March 2017 that Nike officially unveiled the Vaporfly Elite – declaring that it had been developed to breach the two-hour marathon mark at the specially organised Breaking2 race in the coming May. Olympic gold medallist Eliud Kipchoge finished the race in two hours and 25 seconds – narrowly missing the sub-two-hour dream but setting an unofficial world record.

The brand released a consumer version later in the year, named the Vaporfly 4% after research findings that the shoe improved running efficiency by four per cent compared to alternatives on the market. The chunky-soled Vaporflys were a significant design departure from the classic flat marathon trainer, and for many their emergence marks the start of the super-shoe era.

In September 2018, Kipchoge officially beat Kimetto's 2014 marathon time by a margin of 78 seconds wearing a prototype of the Vaporfly Elite's successor, the Vaporfly Next%, with a lighter "Vaporweave" upper. In 2019, Brigid Kosgei broke the long-standing women's marathon world record by 81 seconds wearing the Vaporfly Next%.

By now, the Nike Vaporfly and its transformational impact on running as a sport was becoming controversial, with some arguing that the shoes conferred an unfair advantage on the wearer. Analysis of 500,000 marathon and half-marathon times by The New York Times found that people wearing Vaporflys ran between three and four per cent faster than those of similar abilities in other shoes. Sports scientist Ross Tucker declared that the shoes "broke running".

Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next%, 2019

While the athletics world scrambled to adjust to the impact of the Vaporfly, Nike was already developing something even more advanced.

A day before Kosgei clocked her world record in October 2019, Kipchoge attempted to break the two-hour mark once again. This time he was successful, crossing the finish line in one hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds – though as with his 2017 effort, the record remained unofficial because his run involved the use of rotating pacemakers. On Kipchoge's feet were a prototype of the Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next%.

The shoes featured the addition of Nike Air Zoom pods under the ball of the foot, intended to provide additional cushioning and energy return, as well as even more ZoomX foam. Rumours that Kipchoge's prototypes had included not one but three carbon-fibre plates were widely reported, but later denied by Nike.

In January 2020, governing body World Athletics took action over concerns about the impact of Nike's super shoes on the sporting integrity of long-distance running. It published new regulations requiring athletes to only race in shoes that had been available to purchase for at least four months – effectively forbidding the use of prototypes. Sole thickness was also limited to 40 millimetres and shoes with more than a single rigid plate were banned.

In February 2020, Nike launched the Alphafly Next% officially, confirming that it complied with the new rules.

Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 1, 2020 

Following the success of the Vaporfly, Adidas joined Nike in dropping the low-profile conventional marathon shoe in favour of a thicker foam sole.

However, unlike most other competing brands Adidas did not adopt full-length carbon plates. Instead, it developed "energy rods" – five carbon-infused rods placed and curved to mirror the bones of the foot. The brand claimed this system allowed for a "more natural gait" than a large carbon plate.

The Adizero Adios Pro 1 was launched in May 2020 and in September of that year, Kenyan runner Peres Jepchirchir wore them as she broke the women's half-marathon world record in Prague with a time of one hour, five minutes and 34 seconds – a 37-second improvement on the previous record.

After the race, Jepchirchir was pictured holding up her shoe in triumph. "I was exhausted for the last five kilometres," she said, "But the new shoes have helped me set a record." She went on to knock another 18 seconds off her own record a month later.

In another significant turn of events, World Athletics introduced a loophole to its rules restricting the use of prototypes following industry lobbying. The December 2020 amendment allowed "development shoes" to be worn in races once their specifications are approved by the regulator.

Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% 2, 2022 

Nike continued to innovate, and in June 2022 it launched the second iteration of the Alphafly.

This retained many of the features of its predecessor, but with additional foam under the air pods to assist with the transition of the runner's stride from heel to forefoot. The heel was also widened to improve stability, while the Atomknit upper was tweaked to improve breathability, comfort and snugness.

At the Berlin Marathon in September 2022, the Alphafly Next% 2 helped Kipchoge beat the world record he had set four years earlier wearing the Vaporfly Next% by 30 seconds, this time crossing the finish line in two hours, one minute and nine seconds.

Adidas Adizero Adios Evo Pro 1, 2023 

The battle of the super-shoes was ratcheted up a notch in September this year when Tigst Assefa shattered Kosgei's 2019 women's marathon world record by more than two minutes at the Berlin Marathon.

Assefa wore the newly launched Adidas Adizero Adios Evo Pro 1. Before the race, Assefa had described running in the shoe as "an incredible experience". Afterwards, she was pictured kissing it on the finish line.

The Adizero Adios Evo Pro 1 was designed to pack super-shoe technology into a lighter trainer. Weighing just 138 grams, it is 40 per cent lighter than any other racing super-shoe Adidas has ever created.

Part of the weight savings was achieved through new, lighter versions of Adidas's Lightstrike Pro foam, the outsole and the mesh upper, as well as the removal of the sock-liner. The brand also pointed to a "first-of-its-kind forefoot rocker" placed at 60 per cent the length of the shoe, which it said improves running economy and facilitates forward momentum.

The shoe was named by Time magazine as one of the 200 best inventions of 2023, but also attracted criticism over the fact that despite costing £400 ($500), it is only designed to be worn once.

Nike Alphafly 3, 2023 

Just two weeks after Assefa set her record, super shoes hit the headlines again when Kipchoge's 2022 world record was bested by his fellow Kenyan, Kelvin Kiptum, who completed the Chicago Marathon in two hours and 35 seconds – tantalisingly close to the two-hour threshold.

Kiptum was wearing the Nike Dev 163, a prototype version of the Nike Alphafly 3 officially launched this week and on sale in January 2024. Second-placed runner Benson Kipruto, wearing the Adidas, finished over three minutes behind Kiptum, while women's race-winner Sifan Hasan was also in Nike Dev 163s.

Nike describes the Alphafly 3 as the lightest in the series and its most extensively tested racing shoe ever, with more than 32,000 kilometres covered by runners in development. It stuck with the Air Zoom pods, ZoomX foam and carbon-fibre plate formula of the previous iterations but aimed to improve the shoe's stability, comfort and propulsion.

The most obvious visible change from its predecessor, the Alphafly Next% 2, is the shoe's continuous bottom, which Nike said aids a smoother heel-to-toe transition. Foam was also removed from the midsole towards the back of the shoe to save grams and concentrate the runner's weight on the Air Zoom units. In addition, the carbon plate was widened to improve running stability, while other tweaks were made to assist arch support and reduce rubbing.

In an apparent reference to the single-use Adidas Adizero Adios Evo Pro 1, Nike has also emphasised the Alphafly 3's durability, claiming that it was tested over a minimum distance of 200 miles (322 kilometres).

For now, the coveted official sub-two-hour marathon remains slightly beyond reach. Both Nike and Adidas will keep competing to ensure that the first foot to cross the finish line inside that time will be bearing their logo.

Main image, showing Eliud Kipchoge winning the 2023 Berlin Marathon wearing the Nike Alphafly 3, is by Nike.

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Sportswear brand Puma has said it is a step closer to launching a truly biodegradable shoe, following a trial in which a specially made version of its Suede sneakers decomposed under strict conditions.

In the Re:Suede experiment, 500 shoes were sent out to testers for six months of wear. Of those shoes, 412 were returned to Puma and sent to an industrial composting facility in The Netherlands, where they were mixed with other green waste and left to biodegrade.

After around three and a half months, a large proportion of the leather trainer had broken down sufficiently to be sold in The Netherlands as Grade A compost – a high-quality compost typically used on gardens and landscapes.

Slowing things down was the sole, which in the Re:Suedes was made of thermoplastic elastomer (TPE-E), a type of rubber. It took longer than the other components to break down into small enough pieces to be classified as compost, around six months.

Puma is calling the Re:Suede experiment "successful" – with caveats. The longer timeframe required for the soles to break down is a deviation from standard operating procedures for industrial composting, so the shoes could not just be thrown into a household food waste collection.

However, Puma is hoping to launch a commercial version of the sneaker next year, incorporating a takeback scheme that would see it compost the shoe using its tailor-made process.

"While the Re:Suede could not be processed under the standard operating procedures for industrial composting, the shoes did eventually turn into compost," said Puma chief sourcing officer Anne-Laure Descours.

"We will continue to innovate with our partners to determine the infrastructure and technologies needed to make the process viable for a commercial version of the Re:Suede, including a takeback scheme, in 2024."

In a report of the experiment's findings, Puma said it would pursue a "new business model in composting" that could support the decomposition of the shoe.

"The soles slow the process down, resulting in more composting cycles required to turn the shoe into Grade A compost, meaning they can't be processed using today's standard industrial composting operating procedures," said the report.

"But with a new business model in composting and a higher volume of input into it, those standard operating procedures can change," the report concluded. "There is a future for Re:Suede. To get there, we need more scale."

Puma's Re:Suede shoe is made of Zeology suede, which is tanned using a process based on zeolite minerals and free of chrome, aldehyde and heavy metals. Padding and laces are made of hemp, while the lining is made of a hemp-cotton blend.

For the composting process, Puma partnered with Dutch waste company Ortessa. The procedure involved shredding the shoe and placing the pieces into a composting tunnel – a unit where the temperature, humidity and oxygen levels are kept at optimal levels for bacteria to break down organic matter.

For the decomposing shoe granules to be considered small enough for compost, they had to be under 10 millimetres in size.

Those granules were periodically filtered out and sold as compost in The Netherlands.

The leftover pieces, 10 to 40 millimetres in size, became part of the "compost starter mix" and were combined with more green waste to continue decomposing. Ortessa estimated that the full shoe was turned into compost within approximately six months.

Re:Suede is Puma's second attempt at launching a compostable shoe, with the first coming over a decade ago in the form of 2012's InCycle collection.

Its Basket sneaker, which Puma said was fully compostable through industrial composting, was made of organic cotton and linen with a sole composed of a biodegradable plastic called APINATbio. The range was discontinued in 2014 and its failure blamed on poor consumer demand.

While several shoe designs have been marketed as biodegradable in recent years, the strict conditions required for them to actually break down are often not specified or the infrastructure not available. This can be seen as a kind of greenwashing.

Brands that have launched footwear described as biodegradable include Bottega Veneta with its sugarcane and coffee boots and Adidas with the uppers of its Futurecraft trainers.

A more experimental composition came from German designer Emilie Burfeind, whose compostable sneakers are made with a mushroom mycelium sole and a canine hair upper.

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Architect Katy Marks of Citizens Design Bureau has created Uno, a one-cup bra for women who have undergone mastectomies, to empower and celebrate post-surgery bodies.

Breast cancer survivor Marks designed the Uno collection after her own single mastectomy when she found herself struggling to find bras that offered support to one breast without requiring prosthetics.

"When you have a mastectomy, you come home and suddenly your whole underwear drawer is obsolete – which is pretty depressing," said the architect, who is the founder of London-based office Citizens Design Bureau.

"I cut a lot of bras in half and started adding flat straps on the side, but then, as an architect, I felt compelled to start sketching," she told Dezeen.

Made to order in small batches to eliminate unnecessary waste, the Uno collection features asymmetrical bras and swimwear in a variety of colours that were designed not to compromise comfort or appearance.

Each piece features a single contoured cup and strap for either left or right breasts, supported by a wide band of fabric that is flat on one side and wraps around the chest.

The bras' thinner straps are adjustable while the bikini top can be tied into a decorative bow at the back.

When designing the collection, Marks explained that one of the main challenges was preventing the asymmetry from causing the bra to twist or sag on the body while avoiding tight elastic on the band that could irritate scar tissue and tender skin following radiotherapy.

Marks and her team trialled prototypes on a range of women "of different shapes and sizes" – many of whom are in active treatment – to find the best solution.

"The fact that there are no asymmetric mannequins was also an obstacle," acknowledged the architect.

The underwear is made from a combination of stretch satin and Lenzing modal – a material created from sawdust as a by-product of the European timber industry.

For the swimwear, the team chose Econyl, which is a fabric made of reconstituted ocean plastics.

"I was determined that Uno should not become part of a fast fashion, disposable, high-waste culture that is really destructive," said Marks.

"Lenzing modal is also sumptuously soft on the skin," she added.

Accessibility and affordability were also important priorities for Marks, who plans to publish open-source, simplified versions of some of the garment patterns.

"There is a growing movement of women wanting [asymmetrical bras] and doing it themselves in frustration at not being able to find anything," said the architect.

While Marks highlighted that women with cancer have countless different experiences and might understandably choose to undergo post-surgery breast reconstruction, 69 per cent of women who have mastectomies decide to remain flat after breast removal and deserve appropriate underwear, according to the architect.

"After my surgery, I felt real anxiety and hated that I felt compelled to wear these prosthetics, which felt to me like a kind of cartoonish costume I had to put on in order to feel like a real woman," she said.

"I have two young sons, and I felt really strongly that I didn't want them to see me feeling inhibited by my body and my scars. I wanted to show my kids that it's okay to look a bit different and that it doesn't change who I am."

Marks designed the Uno logo with a hyphen in front of the letter U, which is crowned with an illustrative dot to symbolise a breast.

"I saw the graphic opportunities of using the U and a hyphen in front of the word, to suggest a breast and a scar as a motif," she explained.

"So, it was a little bit of graphic fun, with a logo that I've painted many times, again playfully reflecting all the different shapes and sizes of breasts."

"Uno was about being confidently asymmetric, designing something that looks like a really beautiful thing to wear in its own right – which just happens to be asymmetric and have only one cup," reflected Marks.

"It is up to women themselves to decide what makes them feel feminine or not – nobody else. If you have confidence in who you are, you can find a way for it to shine through."

"Of course, it's easy to say and it took me a while to get there – but I stared at myself in the mirror and really felt that I had to learn to like myself," continued the architect.

"My experience is that many people don't even notice, but when they do, they accept it, and why shouldn't they? Why should we feel ashamed or try to hide our bodies after we have had cancer, as though the only way to be feminine is to be a 'normal woman'?

"We need to shift into the 21st century and recognise that the diversity of our bodies is the norm. The more we see it, the more we can be it."

Designer Lisa Marks previously made Algorithmic Lace, a bra for people who have had mastectomies, which features no underwire and can create the illusion of symmetry and curves. Sportswear brand Adidas recently collaborated with designer Stella McCartney to create a sports bra that allows its wearers to breastfeed more easily.

The photography is by Tara Darby.

Project credits:

Designer: Katy Marks
Models: Anna Versteeg, Claudia Manchanda, Gemma Fish and Jenny Skinner

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Dutch company Human Material Loop is using an unusual waste source to make a zero-carbon wool alternative that requires no land or water use: human hair.

Human Material Loop works with participating hairdressers to collect hair cuttings, which it processes into yarns and textiles and sometimes turns into garments.

Founder and CEO Zsofia Kollar was initially interested in human hair from what she describes as a "cultural and sociological" perspective before she began exploring its material properties.

"Delving into scientific studies about hair revealed not only its unique characteristics but also the stark reality of excessive waste generated," Kollar told Dezeen. "This realisation became a catalyst for a clear mission: finding sustainable ways to utilise hair waste."

Elsewhere, human hair mats are being used to mop up oil spills and to create biodegradable stools, but Kollar honed in on the textile industry as the best target for her aspirations.

"Not only is the textile sector one of the largest markets in our economy, but it also ranks among the most environmentally taxing industries," said Kollar.

"Throughout history, we've utilised a variety of animal fibres in textiles, yet our own hair, composed of the same keratin protein as wool, often goes overlooked," she continued. "Why not treat human hair as we would any other valuable textile fibre?"

According to Kollar, the use of human hair eliminates one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the textile industry: the cultivation of raw materials like cotton plants or farming of sheep for wool.

Waste hair does not degrade any soil, require any pesticide, pollute any water or produce any greenhouse gas emissions, she points out.

At the same time, hair has properties that make it highly desirable. It's flexible, it has high tensile strength, it functions as a thermal insulator and it doesn't irritate the skin.

Human Material Loop has focused on developing the technology to process hair so it can be integrated into standard machinery for yarn and textile production.

The company has made the waste hair into a staple fibre yarn – a type of yarn made by twisting short lengths of fibres together – and has several textiles in development.

It has also made a few complete garments, most recently a red sweater-like dress created in collaboration with the company Henkel, owner of the Schwartzkopf haircare brand.

The dress is intended for display at hairdressing events, as part of an initiative to foster discussion about alternative salon waste-management ideas.

Seeing completed products like these, Kollar said, helps to ease the discomfort or disgust that many people feel around using products derived from humans.

"Surprisingly, the material looks utterly ordinary, akin to any other textile," she said. "A fascinating transformation occurs when individuals touch and feel the fabric. Their initial scepticism dissolves, giving way to a subconscious acceptance of the material."

"The rejection usually stems from those who've merely heard about it without ever laying eyes on the garments themselves," she continued. "It's a testament to the power of firsthand experience in reshaping perceptions"

Kollar says Human Material Loop will also be targeting the architecture and interiors products market, for which she believes hair's moisture resistance, antibacterial properties, and acoustic and thermal attributes will make it an attractive proposition.

The company has a commercial pilot scheduled for 2024 and also aims to create a comprehensive fabric library for brands and designers.

Kollar had been making experimental textiles like a golden, scented tapestry woven from blonde hair for many years before setting out to commercialise the venture with Human Material Loop in 2021.

She is not the only designer to have attempted to utilise wasted hair cuttings. In recent years, Ellie Birkhead incorporated the material into region-specific bricks and hair was used to measure urban pollution in Bangkok.

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Design studio Spacon & X created a runway installation for Danish fashion brand Stine Goya, centred by six towers of sand that collapsed as models walked by.

The show was held during last year's Copenhagen Fashion Week to present Stine Goya's Whisper Loud clothing collection, and its runway has since been shortlisted in the installation design category of the 2023 Dezeen Awards.

Spacon & X had previously worked with the brand on the set design of its Autumn Winter 2022 show, for which it erected huge screens that digitally displayed different elements of nature.

For the Whisper Loud show, the studio instead wanted there to be a "physical manifestation" of the natural world – so it decided to put 20 tonnes of sand to use.

The sand was taken from a small town north of Copenhagen called Hundested, having already been used in its annual sand sculpture festival.

It was then sent to TAP1 – the venue which hosted the Stine Goya show – and compacted into wooden boxes to form large, square blocks.

These blocks of sand were stacked into tall towers, with each block separated by a small layer of cornstarch dyed shocking pink with biodegradable food colouring.

A total of six towers were made and placed atop heaps of sand in the middle of the runway.

The piles of loose sand concealed wooden platforms that could be set to vibrate via remote controls backstage.

These were activated as the models began walking, breaking down the towers and revealing their bright-pink interior to the crowd.

"The audience did not know it was about to happen, so it was set to inspire a reaction and a conversation," explained the studio.

After the show, the sand was re-donated to TAP1, where it will be used for outdoor landscaping.

Spacon & X's set for Stine Goya's Whisper Loud show will compete against four other installations at this year's Dezeen Awards.

This includes the Falling Hours pavilion by BIAD, which is built out of blocks of ice, and Muoto's Ball Theatre – a shiny, hemispherical stage designed to "reawaken our desires for utopia".

The photography is by Hedda Rysstad.

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The process of using bacteria to colour textiles has been brought to a commercial scale by British company Colorifix, which hopes to cut the fashion industry's use of toxic chemical dyes.

Shortlisted for a 2023 Dezeen Award, Colorifix has brought several pigments to market since its founding in 2016 including indigos, mauves, pastels and beiges – all made by bacteria that was genetically engineered to produce certain colour-making enzymes.

The company was started by two synthetic biologists, Orr Yarkoni and Jim Ajioka, after travelling to rural Nepal to develop biological sensors for monitoring heavy metal contamination in the local drinking water.

Appalled to learn that the pollution was caused by waste from the textile dying industry, which was leaking into the river, the two set out to see if they could create a non-toxic alternative to synthetic dyes using their knowledge of engineering microbes.

"We knew we could make colours in bacteria but it was [about] trying to figure out how you could get the colour onto textiles in an efficient manner and using biology to do so," Ajioka told Dezeen.

"When you look at any commodity product, you have to be very, very cost-efficient because otherwise, you're never going to enter the market."

Ajioka hopes to make the company's colouring process cost-competitive with ubiquitous petrochemical dyes.

"Sustainability isn't just about having a great idea," he said. "It's also whether you can scale it and make it into something that will be acceptable to the current market."

Bacterial dyeing makes use of processes, in which the organisms are naturally inclined to engage, according to Ajioka. He suggests looking to the bathroom for an example.

"You will see probably at some point some red stuff growing in your grout and your tiles in your shower," he said. "That's what we do. We engineer bacteria to make colours and they naturally will fix onto surfaces and secrete and deposit the colour onto the surface."

The colours made by Colorifix's bacteria, however, are not their own. Instead, the company uses a DNA database to identify which enzymes are responsible for the natural colour of different plants and animals.

Colorifix's scientists then modify the bacteria with those DNA sequences so they will produce the enzymes themselves.

The bacteria are left to multiply in a liquid culture in bioreactors – "basically fancy beer fermenters", according to Ajioka.

The contents of these tanks are then transferred to a standard dye machine where – given bacteria's preference for clinging to surfaces rather than floating in liquid – they will easily transfer to the yarn or fabric inside, spreading out to produce an even colour.

The bacteria is killed through the application of heat, which also helps to fix the colour.

According to Colorifix, its process eliminates some of the environmental issues associated with dyeing while significantly reducing others.

Compared to conventional dyeing, the process uses 80 per cent less chemicals, 77 per cent less water and produces 31 per cent fewer carbon dioxide emissions, the company claims.

Colorifix has seven pigments in its catalogue so far, with some capable of making multiple colours by tweaking the fermentation or dyeing process.

Pigment 01 can be found in and around geysers, but the team searched for an organism that could produce the same colour in non-extreme conditions and found a perfect underwater bacterium, whose DNA it used as a template. The company can make four different colours using this one pigment by tweaking the pH levels in the fermenters.

There is also Pigment 03, based on a red bacteria that grows on bread – and was thought in medieval times to signify a miracle – as well as the beige-ish Pigment 05, which is essentially melanin, and the lilac-toned Pigment 06, derived from a plant long used as a textile dye in Asia.

"Buying" a pigment is not straightforward, however. The colour a pigment produces on a piece of fabric is dependent on the process, feedstock and environment, so to offer a consistent product, Colorifix operates a hybrid model.

Dye houses license the technology and buy the company's specialised hardware and equipment. Colorifix currently licenses to three dye houses across Europe, which in turn supply fashion brands.

Fabrics dyed with Colorifix's pigments have already started being used by early adopters such as mega-retailer H&M and experimental clothing brand Vollebak, which used a colour based on the enzymes of the indigo plant to produce its DNA T-shirt.

However, Ajioka is keen to stress that even with wide adoption, Colorifix's innovations won't make the fashion industry environmentally friendly.

"The global fashion industry is unsustainable and technology alone will not fix the problem," said Ajioka. "We need a cultural shift towards being more thoughtful about what we wear, extending the life of our clothes and ultimately buying less."

The company has been shortlisted in the material innovation category of the Dezeen Awards, together with its partner the Mills Fabrica Investment Fund.

Bacterial dyeing is also being pioneered by the lifestyle brand Normal Phenomena of Life, which is entirely dedicated to bio-design. Others, such as Danish fashion brand Ganni, are using the organisms to grow an all-natural leather alternative known as bacterial cellulose.

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Chinese car manufacturer Nio has launched Blue Sky Lab, its own sustainable fashion brand, which has been shortlisted for a 2023 Dezeen Award.

Blue Sky Lab creates garments and accessories using materials left over from the car manufacturing process including seat belts, airbags and other car-grade fabrics to demonstrate how waste can be "creatively repurposed".

Nio claims the label is "the world's first sustainable fashion brand launched by an automotive company and brought to mass production".

Blue Sky Lab made its debut in 2021 at the Shanghai Auto Show and has since reused nearly 55,000 metres of waste fabric.

These car-grade surplus materials can help to create new high-performance products, according to the brand.

"Blue Sky Lab enjoys an innate advantage by adopting auto-grade materials in its fashion products as these materials outperform their consumer-grade counterparts to a large extent," the brand said.

"We think more about improving our products rather than blindly catering to the external environment. For example, the recycled materials from the airbags are light and durable with high strength, a perfect fit for lightweight fashion items."

The materials are simply sterilised and repurposed into a variety of products in line with the brand's minimal futuristic aesthetic.

"Regarding environmental protection, most visual communication tends to adopt nature and green elements," the company said.

"However, rather than being confined by such a monotonous style, we have chosen to find inspirations from our DNA and business areas including innovative technologies, manufacturing and industrialization, and lifestyle in carrying out product design."

"Blue Sky Lab has joined with global design talent including Nio's designers, Japanese architect Shuhei Aoyama, French leather goods designer Vincent du SARTEL, Finnish designer Rolf Ekroth, NIO user designers and designers from Parsons School of Design, Li-Ning and Allbirds," the brand added.

The brand told Dezeen it has mass-produced over a hundred different fashion items since its inception alongside tables, stools and lighting fixtures.

The brand also partnered with an independent product testing and certification agency to calculate the carbon footprint of its bestselling products.

"Compared with their counterparts made of traditional raw materials, their footprint per unit is 18 to 58 per cent less," the brand said.

Blue Sky Lab has been shortlisted in the sustainable consumer design category of this year's Dezeen Awards.

Here, the brand is competing against the world's "first refillable" edge styler and soap-in-a-can brand Kankan.

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Looking back on the 2022/2023 academic year, we present some of the most intriguing fashion student design projects recently pinned on Dezeen's School Shows Pinterest board.

This roundup presents 10 design projects from our School Show Pinterest board. The selected pieces and collections showcase how designers can use pioneering materials, as well as present social and personal commentary.

This roundup includes international universities such as Lucerne School of Art and Design, Parsons School of Design, University of East London, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and University of the Arts London.

Scroll down to see ten projects from textiles and fashion design courses, and browse our School Shows board to view more.

Recycled Denim Puffer Project by Xijun Liao

Textile design student Xijun Liao collected scraps of material from denim factories and reworked them into puffer jackets.

The Recycled Denim Puffer Project aims to showcase the versatility of fabric offcuts and demonstrate how they can be used in the wider fashion industry.

View the full School Show ›

Caught in a Sweet Sleep Paralysis by Catarina Magalhães

During her time studying fashion and textile design, Catarina Magalhães took cues from the processes of dreaming and sleep paralysis in the making of this garment.

The corset comprises a red heart with white edging that conceals the wearer's torso with exaggerated hips below. Ombre tights, red kitten heels and white gloves complete the outfit.

View the full School Show ›

Reclaimed by Nature by Zoe Stephens

Fashion design student Zoe Stephens used only reclaimed materials for this garment, which recalls the fading industrial history of Cornwall.

Their wider collection combines feminine and utilitarian aesthetics, and comments on the contrast between human-made structures and forces of nature.

View the full School Show ›

Print à Porter by Giulio Gallana

While studying textiles, student Giulio Gallana created a way in which textile substrates can be recovered from waste fabric and reused.

The fragments were then printed and reassembled into new garments, demonstrating how offcuts of material can be reused in new ways.

View the full School Show ›

A Garment to Trust by Morgan Griffiths Hagan

Textile design student Morgan Griffiths Hagan took cues from Brutalist buildings for this workwear garment.

A Garment to Trust aims to provide the wearer with an item of clothing that departs from fashion's current-day throwaway culture by providing clothing that is sturdy and timeless.

View the full School Show ›

The Beauty of Monster by Lai Ying Wong and Man Ling Cheung

Students Lai Ying Wong and Man Ling Cheung satirised cosmetic surgery and contemporary beauty standards in this look.

Bandage-like fabric, distorted and exaggerated proportions and a breast-implanted corset that imitates human skin comment on the pressure women feel in society to look a certain way.

View the full School Show ›

Queen but not Queen by Ah Sin Yeung

During their time studying costume design, Ah Sin Yeung drew influences from the design of characters from Alice in Wonderland.

Queen but not Queen also takes cues from video game culture and how the two combine.

View the full School Show ›

Follow Dezeen on Pinterest

Pinterest is one of Dezeen's fastest-growing social media networks with over 1.4 million followers and more than ten million monthly views. Follow our Pinterest to see the latest architecture, interiors and design projects – there are more than four hundred boards to browser and pin from.

Currently, our most popular boards are installations and houses.

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Textile company Bananatex has developed a biodegradable lightweight jersey fabric by extracting fibres from the stalks of Abacá banana plants.

The jersey material, which was shortlisted in the material innovation category of Dezeen Awards 2023, is the latest version of a fabric made from the banana plant that Bananatex first launched in 2018.

Bananatex developed the fabric by extracting fibres from the Abacá plant stalk, which are then cooked into a pulp.

This is made into yarn through a paper-making process based in Taiwan, which is then knitted, assembled and manufactured into the final product.

At the end of its life cycle, the fabric, which is Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold, can be composted and biodegrades within 10 weeks in industrial composts and 16 weeks in marine water.

Bananatex is also currently in the process of closing the product's technical cycle by returning used Bananatex fabric to the pulping process.

It could then be used to produce new paper and yarn, thus allowing for a circular production process.

Bananatex aims to draw focus on the use of raw materials, natural resources and garment life cycle to address the topic of sustainability in textile production.

According to the brand, Bananatex fabric has a tearing and abrasion strength that is "amongst the highest in nature" and could give it the potential to replace cotton and synthetic fabrics.

The latest fabric has a softer hand feel in comparison to previous versions and is more versatile, increasing its application possibilities within apparel, according to the brand.

"The main challenge in developing the jersey was to get a jersey with washing stability and elasticity values comparable to existing materials on the market," Bananatex said.

The Abacá plant from which the fabric is made is native to the Philippines and "requires no pesticides, fertilizer or extra water," according to Bananatex.

"The Abacá plants are cultivated in the Philippines in a natural ecosystem, supporting reforestation and enhancing biodiversity, whilst improving the livelihoods of local farmers and communities," the brand told Dezeen.

"These communities generate a stable source of income by harvesting the fibres on a regular basis".

Similar projects include sugarcrete by University of East London (UEL), the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) and Grimshaw and a faux leather jacket made using bacteria.

The photography is by Bananatex, Qwstion and Lauschsicht.

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Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Felicita Gāga has turned the practice of doomscrolling into a digital outfit.

The project, called Threads of Influence, centres around "a digital dress made of social media noise, similarly uncomfortable to embrace and yet too addictive to let go of completely".

Gāga wanted to create a wearable design that embodied the sheer volume of digital content she experiences on a daily basis.

"If I am bombarded with this social media content every day without actively choosing it, why can't I incorporate these influences into something as personal as clothing?" she told Dezeen.

Using green-screen technology, Gāga has produced a film that shows a young woman wearing her digital dress. Its appearance is constantly changing, as it cycles through different visuals.

In the initial scenes, the dress takes the form of various traditional Latvian folk outfits.

As time goes on, these images are replaced by a fast-moving feed of images and videos that reflect the type of content that Gāga is typically fed on her social media feeds.

The content becomes increasingly random and noisy, featuring a vast range of YouTube DIY tutorials, music videos, television clips, memes, celebrity content and animal videos.

"I wanted to turn my research into a story that's deeply personal, one that reflects my own experiences with scrolling through digital content," the designer explained.

"My goal was to create a modern folk tale that could connect with people today, especially those who use social media."

Gāga had originally intended to design a physical fashion collection.

She planned to explore how traditional Latvian folkwear could be fused with contemporary streetwear. However, she found it difficult to detach the historic designs from their original context.

This is because the colours, patterns and shapes of these garments were not just aesthetic choices, but designed according to the resources that were readily available from the surrounding landscape.

She decided to adopt the same approach, but instead of drawing from the physical landscape, she used the digital world as the source for her dress design.

"I came to realise that my phone is an integral part of my immediate reality," she said. "I wanted to be honest about that and showcase the 'new digital nature' that I live in."

She hopes the design will draw attention to the way that social-media culture shapes the way people experience the world.

"The rapid editing of the scrolling evokes empathy for the young woman, as she is constantly bombarded with new information that she must carry with her," she said.

Threads of Influence is Gāga's graduation project from the Bachelor programme at Design Academy Eindhoven and was on show as part of the school's exhibition during Dutch Design Week.

The designer created the visuals for the dress by manually stitching together visuals and clips, but she is interested in exploring whether the design could be automatically generated from a live feed.

With digital fashion now a fast-growing industry – with its very own fashion week – she believes the design could be replicated in a video game or metaverse environment.

"I can imagine people dressing up in my digital dress at metaverse rave parties," Gāga added. "And if Mark Zuckerberg were to extend an invitation for a metaverse meeting, you can be certain that I'd proudly wear this dress."

Another Design Academy Eindhoven graduate, Hsin Min Chan, has designed a dress that aims to make its wearer unapproachable.

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Sportswear brand Nike has launched the Nike Swoosh 1 trainer, a colourful Flyknit shoe for young children that is made from 80 per cent recycled materials and designed to feel like "cruising around barefoot".

The shoe, which is being released globally, was constructed to "help support our earliest walkers", Nike said.

"Promoting natural gait development is crucial for early walkers," the brand added.

"Research shows that our lifelong gait pattern begins to solidify as early as five to six months after we learn to walk. Our feet need to bend, flex, grip and splay in order to develop how they're naturally intended to."

Nike Swoosh 1 features the brand's seamless Flyknit upper, which aims to support small feet, with an outsole made from thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) that was constructed to be grippy and provide traction and durability when walking.

It was made from 80 per cent recycled materials, according to the brand, and has a colourful design with a deep blue outsole and an upper covered in dappled blue, yellow and red hues.

Bright red was also used as an accent colour, while the brand's signature swoosh logo was rendered in an oversized childlike style in a blue hue that matches the sole.

The shoe, which also comes in a black-and-white version, is closed using practical Velcro tabs.

The seamless knitted upper means the Nike Swoosh 1 is very flexible, which the brand says makes it suitable for young children.

"The shoe can bend in all directions, helping to provide kids the mobility they need to mimic the feeling of cruising around barefoot," Nike said.

"Fun fact: Babies have more nerve endings concentrated in their feet than in any other part of their body."

The Nike Swoosh 1 is the first-ever Nike Kids shoe to receive the American Podiatric Medical Association's Seal of Acceptance, which is granted to products that encourage good foot health.

The trainer, which was designed for children aged nine to 36 months, also has a wide toe box to let toes naturally splay and flex.

Other unusual Nike designs include the glueless ISPA Link trainers, which can be easily disassembled, and the hands-free GO FlyEase sneakers, which were designed for the user to just step into.

The photography is courtesy of Nike.

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Charlene Prempeh's Now You See Me book celebrates the work of Black designers during the past century – from the lauded to the chronically overlooked. Here, she selects nine that have had a particularly significant impact.

Titled Now You See Me: An Introduction to 100 Years of Black Design, the book features architects, fashion designers and graphic artists and was launched to coincide with Black History Month in the UK.

British writer Prempeh, who is the founder of creative agency A Vibe Called Tech and was a Dezeen awards judge in 2022, wanted the book to correct the historic marginalisation of Black creatives.

"I've always found the lack of record on Black lives strange," Prempeh told Dezeen. "I wanted to add to a growing body of work that aims to address and correct that imbalance."

"I hope the book is broad enough for people to see that the problem isn't related to just one discipline or one creative but was in fact systemic," she added.

The book focuses particularly on pioneering Black designers whose work has helped to define cultural movements, exploring their careers and significance in depth.

Here, Prempeh picks out nine who you should know:

Emory Douglas

"It is almost impossible to look at the work of graphic artist Emory Douglas without thinking of what comprised, comprises, or should comprise the Black aesthetic.

"He sits in the unusual space of straddling the Black Arts Movement – a political collective of Black creatives who adopted the Black Power movement as cultural nationalists during the 1960s and '70s, calling on the creation of poetry, novels, visual arts, and theatre to reflect pride in Black history and culture – and revolutionary nationalists who are best represented by the Black Panther Party."

"The party, where Douglas was a key figure, used his blunt, provocative, sometimes violent graphic images to bring their rhetoric to life."

Kenneth Ize

"Kenneth Ize, a 2019 finalist of the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, creates hand-woven textiles for his label in a small factory that he owns and operates in Nigeria."

"Where many designers would have seen making the exclusive shortlist of the prize as a sign to move to the commercial fashion centres of London, Paris, or Milan, Ize has taken his acclaim and invested it in Lagos where he continues to create collections with brands like Karl Lagerfeld and SAGAN (pictured)."

Diébédo Francis Kéré

"Diébédo Francis Kéré is a recent recipient of the coveted Pritzker Architecture Prize. The first African and first Black person to receive the award, Kéré has been answering the call to rebuild in Africa since the launch of the Kéré Foundation in 1998, established to advocate for a child's right to a comfortable classroom."

"Born in the village of Gando, Burkina Faso, Kéré openly points to Afrofuturism as the organising principle for his work.

"During his studies, he began work on the Gando Primary School completed in 2001 (pictured), engaging villagers by drawing his plans in the sand and actively listening and incorporating their suggestions and improvements. The Dano Secondary School followed, with Kéré once again responding to local climate issues using local technologies."

Ann Lowe

"Black fashion designer Ann Lowe was given the opportunity to design Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress in 1953 while being denied recognition for it when Kennedy referred to Lowe only as her 'colored woman dressmaker' in an interview."

"Lowe's life story is now positioned as the discovery of a great designer. And she was great – the wedding dress, whether Jackie loved it or not, would have influenced a million dresses across the globe. Yet Lowe's experience is also an example of the boxes that Black designers were placed in at the time – mainly, out of sight."

Emmett McBain

"Graphic designer Emmett McBain focused on Black designs for Black audiences, choosing to work on briefs where Black people are the stars of their own show.

"McBain's portfolio includes iconic album covers, advertisements and the seminal 'Black is Beautiful' advert (pictured) – a monochrome masterclass on insidious racism – that he made in 1968 in his position as creative director at Vince Cullers Group."

"The agency, founded in 1956, was the first African American full-service advertising agency. Being reliant on Black endorsements meant McBain could design without a studied eye on the reaction of the white establishment. His work creates an intimacy with its Black audience and a model for design rooted in freedom."

Liz Montague

"Liz Montague has become what The New Yorker believes is the first Black woman cartoonist to be published in its pages, after she wrote to the editor to complain about lack of representation. Her work centralises Black characters with a layer of humour that acts as a knowing nod to the double frustrations of Black women in a society that is at turns sexist and racist."

"Other high-profile gigs include an illustrated video for Joe Biden's presidential campaign in 2020 that was narrated by Stacey Abrams and a commission to illustrate a Google Doodle celebrating Black icon of graphic art, Jackie Ormes."

Norma Sklarek

"In 1959, Norma Sklarek became the first African American woman to become a member of the American Institute of Architects. Three years later, she became the first Black female licensed architect in California. By 1985, Sklarek was the first African American woman to co-own an architecture practice."

"This trio of firsts has caused some to anoint Sklarek the 'Rosa Parks of architecture', drawing parallels between Parks's commitment in protest and Sklarek's professional resilience.

"Her architectural successes include the modernist design of the US Embassy in Tokyo in 1976 (pictured) and the Terminal One station at the Los Angeles International Airport in 1984."

Zelda Wynn Valdes

"American fashion and costume designer Zelda Wynn Valdes is often wrongly cited for designing the Playboy Bunny outfit. Her more interesting (and factually correct) claim to fame lies in the designer-and-muse relationship she formed with singer and actress Joyce Bryant (pictured)."

"As costume designer for the famously all-Black ballet company Dance Theatre of Harlem, Valdes also played an important role in artistic resistance during the Civil Rights Movement."

Paul Revere Williams

"Paul Revere Williams was an architectural juggernaut who began his career in 1921, creating luxury homes for Hollywood icons such as Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Lucille Ball.

"In addition to his work on residential estates, he designed glamorous commercial projects such as the headquarters for MCA, the Saks Fifth Avenue department store on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, and the luxurious Sunset Plaza Apartments."

"Despite an impressive roster of clients, Williams had to develop elaborate tactics in order to avoid uncomfortable situations with his white patrons. He learned to draw backwards so he wouldn't offend by sitting next to them and walked around sites with his hands behind his back so there'd be no awkward moments where clients would have to negotiate shaking his hand."

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Promotion: Colmar has commissioned Guatemalan-Amercian artist Joshua Vides to reimagine best-selling pieces from the skiing brand's archive to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

The Colmar 100 capsule collection includes ten different pieces, spanning fashion and accessories, which Vides has imbued with playful trompe l'oeil graphics.

Among the pieces is a cashmere and wool jumper, designed to resemble the Ceffa jackets famously worn by Italy's national alpine ski team in the 1970s, complete with a ski race bib.

Vides finished two padded unisex ski jackets with his hallmark black brushstrokes to emphasize their construction – including quilts and pockets –and in one case painting on a fake lapel.

A reversible puffer vest follows the same theme, finished in black on one side and white on the other.

There is also a scarf, cotton trousers, a sweatshirt, two hats emblazoned with trompe l'oeil ski goggles and a T-shirt with a graphic of five huge fold medals hanging around the neck, referencing a historic photo of Croatian ski champion Ivica Kostelic.

"I usually start collaborations without a specific idea in mind," the artist explained. "I give myself the freedom to react to the stimuli of the moment and create the concept on the spot."

"In this particular case, I thought about what an artist has in common with an athlete: the idea of constant creativity in finding solutions, the best possible ones, to react to failure. The satisfaction of winning after failing several times, of standing on a podium and getting back up after a defeat."

Established in 1923, Colmar is known as one of the pioneers in developing high-performance ski race clothing, known for kitting out various national teams starting with the Italian ski team at the 1952 Olympics.

To learn more about the brand, visit its website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen as part of a partnership with Colmar. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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US studio Aranda\Lasch has created an interior facade for a Dior store outside of Doha with towering, curvaceous fins backlit by glowing translucent panels.

Located in the Place Vendôme mall in Lusail, Qatar, the Dior Femme facade stands 72 feet tall (22 metres tall) and contains a main entrance flanked by window displays.

Aranda\Lasch designed the rippling facade as a homage to the textile construction used throughout the fashion brand's garments.

"Inspired by how the brand's designers, starting with Monsieur Dior, use pleating to turn something soft into something geometric, we strove to transform the softness, movement, and luminous qualities of fabric into architectural materials," said the studio.

"Like the pleats in a Dior dress swaying with the movement of the body, the facade tries to capture a fleeting moment with an architecture of unexpected lightness."

It consists of a series of rippling white fins fused onto a translucent backlit surface that is framed by a mezzanine and columns of stone.

The fins were made from a "thermoformed solid surface" and were varied in oscillation and depth to create a dynamic, changeable texture.

Working with solid surface contractor Rosskopf + Partner, the team let the physical constraints of the material guide the creation of the curves.

"The facade appears like drawn sheer curtains from the side letting only subtle figures of light and shadow peer through, but open up and allows full view of the storefront, mezzanine and entrances from the front," said the studio.

"The effects on the light, the movement and the texture all lead to an architectural pleat in motion."

Each fin was etched with a grooved pattern to further diffuse light and soften its materiality.

The same solid-surface material and glass were used to create the translucent panels on which the fins were placed.

Aranda\Lasch worked with lighting designer Molly McKnight and lighting manufacturers Coolegde to design an LED lighting system for the background that produces a solid, white light.

"Dior demanded nothing but uniformity of light," said the team.

The pieces were fabricated in Germany before being shipped to Qatar where Aranda\Lasch assembled the piece in collaboration with facade consultant Front and facade contractor Seele.

"In the end, the installation is the largest most complex solid surface application worldwide," said the team.

Dior Femme – Place Vendôme has been shortlisted in the architectural lighting design category of Dezeen Awards 2023.

Aranda\Lasch previously created marble displays for a Valextra store in Miami and oversized architectural elements for a Kaws exhibition in Shanghai.

The photography is by Gerry O’Leary. 

Project credits:

Design: Aranda\Lasch
Facade consultant: Front
Lighting designer: Molly McKnight
Executive architect: G4
Solid surface manufacturer: Rosskopf + Partner AG
Facade contractor: Seele Inc.

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Singapore brand Will & Well has designed a clothing collection to enable people with disabilities to dress more easily, while also appealing to anyone who ever struggled with a clasp.

Will & Well's work was among 12 design projects displayed at Singapore Design Week's Playground of Possibilities, an exhibition showcasing local design innovations tackling pressing contemporary challenges, curated by Jackson Tan.

On show was Will & Well's new collection, titled Adaptable, which features clothing with easy-to-use alternatives to elements such as back zips, hook-and-eye closures, armholes and buttons – elements that everyone has struggled with at some point, even without the disadvantage of restricted mobility.

At the same time, the collection explores adaptability as a desirable quality in fashion, with two items that can be converted and worn in different ways.

The Two-Way blouse has Velcro closures on the shoulders so that a wearer with limited mobility in their arms – or their carer – can put it on without having to struggle with neck or armholes.

At the same time, it has a design that can optionally be worn back-to-front, creating extra mileage from one item of clothing.

The Convertible Cargo Pants are similar, in that the lower legs can be unzipped to turn the item into shorts.

They also feature an elastic waistband and a Will & Well innovation called HangLoops, a pair of long loops on either side of the trousers allowing them to hang off the wearer's arms so they can lower or raise the garment without stooping down or having to grip.

The HangLoops allow some people who would previously have needed assistance with their clothing to use the bathroom on their own, which can help impart a feeling of independence and dignity.

To suit the regional context, the clothing is made with light fabrics from Japan, in summery cuts and with Asian sizing.

Will & Well uses photography of both disabled and able-bodied models on its website and promotes itself as an "inclusive" brand rather than one strictly for people with disabilities.

"We primarily design our products and services with the forethought of marginalised groups, including persons with disabilities, the elderly and caregivers," Will & Well head of communications Cheryl Tan told Dezeen.

"But the kind of inclusivity that we believe in is also one where everybody else in society, whether or not they have a disability, can benefit from ease in dressing."

Tan added that almost everyone will struggle with mobility at some point in their lives, and that innovations that make things accessible for people with disabilities are often easier for everyone to use.

"At the end of the day, nobody can escape age," she said. "And you're not going to be as flexible as you were when you were younger. A lot of us won't realise how difficult it is to do something as basic as putting on your clothes until it happens to you or your loved ones."

"Sometimes it's just rude, not seeing these people or not considering them in your design process," she added.

Will & Well was started by then fashion student Elisa Lim in 2017. She had been running the business for a year making bespoke garments for people with disabilities when she decided that some of the solutions she had come up could have a broader market in ready-to-wear collections.

Now, in addition to bespoke and ready-to-wear, the social enterprise has branched out to jewellery, runs workshops, and has made a card game that aims to stimulate conversation.

They're all elements that developed organically as Lim and Tan tried to answer the question of how to make fashion more inclusive of people with disabilities.

According to Tan, the game came about while they explored the idea of a clothing collection that would make the dressing process easier for caregivers.

"As we spoke to them and as we worked with them over the years, we realised that even if we make the clothes easier to wear, that might not solve the problem," said Tan.

"In Singapore, your caregivers might be your loved ones or your family or your partner, or they might be hired caregivers, but if there are tensions or if the relationship between the two parties is not the most comfortable or the most open, then being vulnerable and being dressed by that person is not going to be as pleasant as it can be, even if you make the clothing easy to put on."

Their solution was Give Me a Hand, a series of conversation cards with a gamified aspect, where players build a path of cards between each other as they also open up and share personal thoughts and feelings.

"It's been so well received, especially in our local Asian context, because in typical Asian families, you don't really have very close or vulnerable conversations with one another," said Tan.

Other adaptive clothing designs have come from Kim Kardashian's brand SKIMS, which released an underwear line with easy-access closures last year.

In an opinion piece written for Dezeen, Luc Speisser argued that designers and brands must start thinking about changes that can make their products more accessible for people living with disabilities.

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Fashion house Prada has teamed up with commercial space company Axiom Space to create lunar spacesuits for NASA's Artemis III mission, which will be the first crewed moon landing since 1972.

Called Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU), the suits will be designed to give astronauts "advanced capabilities for space exploration," Prada said.

They are an evolution of NASA's Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) spacesuit design and will use "innovative technologies and design" to be more flexible and provide more protection against the harsh lunar environment, according to the brand.

Prada will work together with Axiom Space's systems team to create the lunar spacesuits, which will be used for Artemis III, the first crewed lunar landing since December 1972.

Artemis III will also be the first mission to place a woman on the moon.

The lunar spacesuits will feature specialised tools for exploration and scientific work and give NASA commercially developed systems to let people work and live on the moon.

"The constantly forward-thinking ethos of Prada for humanity has broadened to his desire of adventure and to brave new horizons: space," Prada Group marketing director Lorenzo Bertelli said.

"We are honored to be a part of this historic mission with Axiom Space," he added. "Our decades of experimentation, cutting-edge technology and design know-how – which started back in the 1990s with Luna Rossa challenging for the America's cup – will now be applied to the design of a spacesuit for the Artemis era."

The collaboration marks "the first groundbreaking partnership between an Italian luxury fashion house and a commercial space company, Axiom Space," Prada said.

"We are thrilled to partner with Prada on the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit," said Michael Suffredini, CEO of Axiom Space.

"Prada's technical expertise with raw materials, manufacturing techniques, and innovative design concepts will bring advanced technologies instrumental in ensuring not only the comfort of astronauts on the lunar surface, but also the much-needed human factors considerations absent from legacy spacesuits."

NASA is currently working with a number of companies on its space missions. American entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX has won a NASA contract to design a moon lander, while tyre-maker Goodyear is creating airless tyres for a future lunar vehicle.

The space agency has also tapped Bjarke Ingels' studio BIG and construction technology company ICON to create Mars Dune Alpha, a 3D-printed structure designed to simulate living on Mars.

The photography is courtesy of Axiom Space.

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British fashion designer Ozwald Boateng says there is "definitely an opportunity" to disrupt the furniture industry in the same way he shook up the tailoring traditions of London's Savile Row in this interview.

Boateng has worked with Italian brand Poltrona Frau on his first-ever furniture collection, which includes a rework of the traditional Chesterfield sofa.

The London-based designer told Dezeen there was "a lot of space" for a more diverse cultural aesthetic in the market.

"There is a creative language that needs to express more in this space," Boateng said.

"I have a cultural aesthetic, in terms of my African roots, from being born in the UK and from my experience on Savile Row," he added. "There is definitely an opportunity to express this aesthetic in furniture."

Boateng was born in 1967 to parents who immigrated from Ghana in the 1950s.

He made history in 1995 when, at the age of 28, he became the youngest and first Black tailor to open a store on Savile Row, the heartland of bespoke suit-making.

The designer quickly earned renown for his fresh take on classic menswear silhouettes, which attracted a much younger and more diverse demographic to Mayfair.

"Starting on a traditional base is always the key for me," Boateng said.

"It's about taking something traditional and finding a modern language in which to express it."

When Poltrona Frau invited Boateng to collaborate, he saw it as an opportunity to demonstrate how the same thinking could be applied to furniture, he recalled.

The Chesterfield is one of the most iconic British furniture designs of all time, with almost as much history as the three-piece suit.

Characterised by quilted leather upholstery and a low back, this couch was first developed in the mid-1700s for Lord Philip Stanhope, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield, to seat gentlemen guests without creasing their suits.

Poltrona Frau has produced its own version, Chester, ever since the company was established in 1912.

"I have been sitting on a version of this chair for as long as I can remember; it represents so much historically," said Boateng.

"I knew that if I could find a modern way to interpret it, it would be a win."

Boateng unveiled new versions of the Chester sofa, armchair, daybed and ottoman as part of a capsule collection presented during London Design Festival.

The designs are upholstered in a unique embossed leather that incorporates a highly intricate pattern.

It took Poltrona Frau's team six months to develop a hot embossing technique to produce this effect.

The process has to be carried out manually, using a press that sandwiches the leather between a smooth metal surface and a bakelite plate.

Boateng believes this level of innovation is essential to ensuring that designs like the Chesterfield stay relevant, but claims it is often lacking in the British manufacturing industry.

"I have always said that tradition has to evolve or it dies," he said.

"In the UK, we only produce a fraction of what we did when I was first starting out. That has a lot to do with not evolving skillsets. If you're not willing to change, it doesn't work."

Boateng said the key to evolving traditions is "understanding the rules, so you can understand how to bend them".

"It's about adding friction into the process," he said.

Boateng's version of Chester is a clear expression of his multicultural heritage.

The embossed pattern that features on the design is Tribal, one of the designer's signature textile designs, which is based on prints from traditional West African cloth.

The collection also includes a rework of one of Poltrona Frau's landmark designs, the 1930 Vanity Fair armchair, which sees the Tribal pattern digitally printed onto matt-effect velvet.

Boateng described the collection as "a layered proposition, because of what it represents".

However, the designer said that he is more motivated by the quality of the end product than what it stands for.

"I have been navigating perception my whole life," he said.

"I knew that if I could be on Savile Row, respecting the traditions but finding interesting ways to evolve them, it would be accepted and would open doors in terms of perception. It's the same with Poltrona Frau."

Ozwald Boateng x Poltrona Frau was on show from 16 to 24 September as part of London Design Festival. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

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Artist Yoshihisa Tanaka made "hundreds of metres" of pleated and folded washi paper to create an interactive installation for Japanese brand Issey Miyake's Spring Summer 2024 show at Paris Fashion Week.

Tanaka worked with a Japanese factory with a history of more than 1,300 years of making washi paper to create the material, which is made from plants with a touch of clay, he said.

Yoshihisa Tanaka created an installation for Issey Miyake's SS24 show

The shapes in the floating paper installation were informed by Issey Miyake's design philosophy, which draws on the idea of a piece of cloth.

"Inspired by the concept, I thought about using a piece of paper in the simple shape of a rectangle and, by folding it, creating lines that are sharp and straight, as well as soft and curved," Tanaka told Dezeen. "It holds in the air as it moves effortlessly."

"A piece of washi paper, once it is pleated and folded, can be easily carried around in a compact size, and you can hang it easily by fixing just one point," he added.

"I envisioned an installation of washi paper where the pieces all convey these qualities to the most extent and for that, I did many studies trying to find their appropriate sizes in comparison to the scale of the venue."

The resulting pieces were hung and draped from the ceiling, low enough in places for the models' bodies to affect them.

"I see these pieces of washi paper more as membranes that react to their surroundings in a very subtle way," Tanaka said.

"I describe their reaction as something that speaks to and answers to the movement of someone passing by as well as the resulting changes in the airflow, the sound wave, the humidity and even the person's emotions."

The factory that Tanaka used continues the old tradition of making washi paper by hand, though for this project it used a small machine to make washi paper in "rolls of hundreds of metres", the artist said.

The Issey Miyake Spring Summer 2024 collection, called "Grasping the Formless", featured fluid, formless designs.

It was presented with the help of dancers whose free-flowing movements contrasted some of the more restrictive head-to-feet looks on show, such as the tubular Ambiguous knit series.

The collection was informed by a picture that Issey Miyake designer Satoshi Kondo took of a flag that was fluttering in the sky outside Parisian art gallery Bourse de Commerce.

"I was drawn to the flag's undulating form: its drapery waving in motion was beautiful and there was something accidental and transient about it that I found captivating," he told Dezeen.

"This is how I arrived at the idea for the collection to grasp and to represent formless elements found in nature and also the serendipitous moments they create, like the flag."

To Kondo, the washi-paper installation was integral to the presentation of the Spring Summer 2024 collection and created a more "comprehensive experience".

"The suspended pleated pieces of washi paper move in the air as they react to the cast's performance as well as the subtle changes in the surroundings," he said. "In that sense, the pieces work with the cast and are part of the scenography."

"The fact that they move only as a response to environmental changes conveys a sense of ambiguity," Kondo added.

"It was also our intention to create abstract, changing forms like these to allow the freedom of imagination."

Issey Miyake, whose eponymous founder passed away last year from liver cancer at the age of 84, is known for its pleated, draped and fluid designs.

After Miyake's death, we rounded up seven key projects from his five-decades-long career.

The photography is by Olivier Baco. Photography and video courtesy of Issey Miyake.

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Costume designer Ane Crabtree drew on the style of New York City's Washington Heights neighbourhood and created a coat to function as "a house that you wear on the street" for Apple TV+ series The Changeling, she tells Dezeen in this interview.

The eight-part series, which is based on a novel of the same name by author Victor LaValle, follows the lives of librarian Emma, played by Clark Backo, and used-book dealer Apollo, played by LaKeith Stanfield.

Spanning different timelines, it is set in an alternative version of New York that veers into a dark fairytale.

The city of New York and the specific neighbourhood in which much of the story takes place helped to inform Crabtree's choice when designing costumes for the character of Apollo.

"I thought about how beautifully men dress in New York City, throughout time, and certainly in Washington Heights where they live," Crabtree told Dezeen.

"There's something to the way that New York men dress that has a bit of flash and a bit of nostalgia that I really think translates to an individual."

"Imagine these two people, very well-read, surrounded by the ghost of all their favourite writers from Harlem, all of the jazz greats," she added.

"Who are their heroes? It's James Baldwin; for Apollo, I talked about dark academia, a fashion term but it has its roots in the celebration of all things literary."

Crabtree also chose a material palette that would work across the story's various timelines, with the costumes in the part of the show set in the present having a retro feel that nods to earlier periods.

"I did a lot of tweeds and checks and plaids because it's rich fabrics that could have existed all the way back to the 1800s and every time in between, in different ways," she said.

For Apollo, she also sourced a rare New York Yankees cap from a time in history when the baseball team had a Black league, creating a more contemporary look that still functions as a historical reference.

"The New York Yankees cap at first glance could be like 'a guy on the street, who looks really cute and he's wearing a New York cap because it's reality' – however, there's history to that as well," she said. "And a respectful nod to Black history that should be [seen] throughout the whole of the show."

For the character of Emma, Crabtree thought about how clothes could be used as a form of protection.

"Sometimes you're just looking for intimate personal space and you have your coat closed around you," she said.

"I always think of these carapaces that surround a person for protection, and it's almost a house that you wear on the street. So that was the ideology behind Emma's cape and cloak."

Cloaks are also rare to see in real life, Crabtree added.

"It's just fashionable on someone and you don't see it very often," she said. "That turns into a kind of bedraggled protective armour and it has a life of its own, it becomes its own character."

Most of the costumes were designed by Crabtree and made from scratch to suit her specific vision, though the designer also used vintage clothes.

"There were some vintage pieces of Emma's and Apollo's but it's hard – you can't always use vintage because you need so many as so much happens to them," she said.

The designer also drew on older films to get the right feel for The Changeling costumes.

"Colour is really important and colour is always emotional, it's all psychological," Crabtree said. "[It is] harkening back, nostalgia-wise, to many films that had a certain palette in the 1960s or the warm tones of the '70s."

"You started to see more Black film in the '70s," she added. "I wanted some warm, golden, nostalgic colours that would give us an empathetic approach, a connection to every character's history. But also on a very base note, beautiful, warm tones look fantastic on Black skin."

To Crabtree, who was born in Kentucky to Japanese parents, it was important to create costumes that would celebrate the history and background of the characters in The Changeling.

Her own background and a longing for more diverse representation in media also informed her decision to work on the TV series.

"Most of my best friends are Black Americans, and I do want to get it right," she said. "What led me to this is the opportunity to tell a story, as a person of colour myself."

"I'm 59 and there's not been a lot of stories about people of colour with me growing up that I was able to see. If I am able to help tell that story and inspire other people, I'm going to be really proud of that at 100 years old."

Crabtree has previously designed the costumes for TV series The Handmaid's Tale and created outfits for the imaginary future inhabitants of Planet City.

The photography is courtesy of Apple TV+.

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Parisian fashion brand Coperni has collaborated with Swiss furniture company USM Haller to create its first-ever boutique, a shop-in-shop at French department store Printemps Haussmann.

The shop-in-shop, installed at Printemps Haussmann in Paris, marks Coperni's first-ever physical retail location and will be replicated at London's Selfridges store and China's Duty Free Mall in Hainan Island.

Described by Coperni's co-founder as "techno-chic", the interior is defined by its cubic, space-age-style look that was achieved by reinterpreting USM Haller's cubic storage systems as tables, walls and display areas.

The floor of the retail space was covered in Versailles parquet flooring, with each of the wooden floor panels separated by USM Haller's silver tubing. This typically lines the corners and edges of its storage systems and furniture.

The Versailles parquet flooring was chosen for its artisanal and timeless spirit that draws on Parisian craftsmanship, which Coperni said pays homage to its ethos as a brand.

The use of USM Haller's silver tubing within the Versailles parquet flooring system marks the first time that USM has adapted and reinterpreted its modular systems into a wooden material.

USM Hallers modular systems also form arch-shaped display units along the perimeter of the shop-in-shop, which were fitted with rails allowing Coperni's ready-to-wear collection to be displayed.

A display table constructed from larger cubic modules was placed at the centre of the space, while a wall behind was branded with the Coperni logo.

In 2022, Coperni's Spring Summer 2023 show during Paris Fashion Week went viral for live spraying a dress onto the body of supermodel Bella Hadid using Fabrican's sprayable liquid fibre.

AMO recently created a terracruda-clad shop-in-shop for Parisian fashion brand Jacquemus in Selfridges, London, that was designed to have a "Provence atmosphere."

The photography is courtesy of Coperni.

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Hoodies and tailored shorts moulded from plasticine were presented during British fashion brand JW Anderson's Spring Summer 2024 womenswear show at London Fashion Week.

Returning to Camden's iconic Roundhouse venue, where it also presented its Spring Summer 2023 show, JW Anderson showed its Spring Summer 2024 womenswear collection under the guise of "putting playfulness in pragmatism and pragmatism in playfulness."

The opening look for the show was a grey hoodie with stark white drawstrings, which was paired with rolled-cuff white shorts and brown leather sandals.

Bar the sandals, the complete look was moulded from plasticine, a type of clay.

A trio of the moulded looks was sent down the runway, with pieces that had been sculpted and hardened into rigid forms.

Each of the sleeves of the hoodies had been crafted with slits at the crook of the arm and fitted with zips to the cuff to enable movement.

Models walked onto the runway with their hands placed rigidly within the front pocket of the garment.

"The wearable everyday staples are sculpted, becoming conceptualised and malleable," said JW Anderson. "Classic draping methods are instead replaced by the act of manual moulding."

The hoodies and shorts appeared in a number of different colours typically associated with plasticine. Hoodies were presented in hues of grey, flesh and bright orange, while the shorts came in shades of white, blue and grey.

In the show notes, the brand described the collection as: "Putting playfulness in pragmatism and pragmatism in playfulness. Clothes meant to be used, misused and toyed with. The everyday, and the out there."

"Proportions that shrink, curve, tilt, expand," it added. "Clarity and purposefulness, with a crafty bent. The hoodie, the perfecto, the bomber jacket, the blazer; the trousers, the cargo trousers, the shorts; the minidress, the dress."

"Padded, knotted, exploded; crocheted, molded, draped. A sense of plainness that is not so plain. Of function with the oomph of play."

The use of plasticine was hinted at prior to the show, with guests' invitations taking shape as blocks of colourful, plastic-wrapped Scola Colour Clay plasticine that were delivered in JW Anderson cardboard sleeves with information about the show.

The show also featured familiar, tied plastic-bag looks that nodded to the brand's Spring Summer 2023 plastic-bag fish dress, but had been reinterpreted as inflated sportswear in bright and bold plasticine hues.

JW Anderson was founded by Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson in 2008. Anderson is also the creative director at Spanish luxury brand Loewe.

Following the opening of Anderson's first JW Anderson store in Milan, the designer spoke to Dezeen about how he sometimes feels he "fell into doing fashion."

The photography is courtesy of JW Anderson.

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Metro newspapers and Thames debris were used to form this collection of London-centric products, created by local designers as part of the Atelier100 incubator, which is on show at London Design Festival.

Taking over a pop-up showroom in LDF's newest design district, Dalston to Stokey, the exhibition highlights products by 22 emerging London creatives from the worlds of fashion and interiors.

The pieces were created as part of an incubator, founded by Swedish design giants IKEA and H&M in 2022 to champion designers and manufacturers in the British capital and encourage more local production.

"It's the opposite of IKEA and H&M, which is interesting in itself," said Marcus Engman, creative director of IKEA's parent company Ingka Group.

The incubator helps designers fund the production of their product, alongside practical workshops on topics from accounting and marketing to the particular requirements of mass production, which are generally not covered in design schools.

By focusing on London, the companies aim to support young talent from a greater variety of cultural and economic backgrounds than can be found in closer Scandinavian capitals like Stockholm or Copenhagen.

"The intent with Atelier100 is to find another creative scene that better represents the many people that are actually buying from our companies," Engman told Dezeen.

"Most people working in design all over the world are quite fortunate people, maybe their fathers or mothers have been in the same trade," he added. "So to try to break that, that's the intention of this."

"London is one of the most diverse cities in the world, so it's really interesting to see what we can do there."

Many of the products created by Atelier100's second cohort use hyper-local materials that can only be found in London.

Industrial designer Thomas Wheller carved a set of spoons using offcuts from local tree surgeons, while artist Rosie Stonham hand-blew glass into moulds made of scrunched-up Metro newspaper to form a series of vases.

Similarly, the feet of the Mudlark Chair by architecture studio CAN were 3D-printed replicas of rubble the studio collected from the Thames riverbed at low tide.

The iridescent boulders hold up a frame made of anodised aluminium scaffolding, in a nod to the city's ubiquitous building sites, while the seat and backrest are made using the wood from a London plane tree that made the news when it fell on a building in Soho Square last year.

Several of the projects also made use of deadstock yarn and textiles, sourced all around the capital.

South London maker Jaclyn Pappalardo created an upholstered mirror using leftover fabric from local upholsterers while fashion designer Abiola Onabule created a dramatically billowing shirt using deadstock cotton from Dalston Mill Fabrics.

Menswear label Kwaku Joseph's homage to London is less literal, consisting of a three-piece set informed by the patterned zip-up bags and market stall awnings of Peckham.

Yet other fashion designs focused more on personalisation.

Among them are a pair of 3D-printed mules by accessories studio Body Amplification Devices, designed using algorithmic modelling so each pair is slightly different, and adjustable pleated garments by Alexandra Larrabure that grow and shrink with the wearer.

Also part of Atelier100's second cohort were David Searcy, Jess Flood-Paddock, Charlie Humble-Thomas, Annalisa Iacopetti, Six Dots Design, Maison S. Sommet, Ambra Dentella, Eastmond Apparel, Ex-A Studio, Matan Fadida, Gina Corrieri, Izzi Valentine, Leclò and Lr.d.

Notable alumni include design studio Mitre & Mondays, responsible for designing the pop-up showroom for this year's show, and Andu Masebo who recently nabbed the V&A's emerging designer commission.

Working on the incubator has also underlined that for IKEA and H&M, a localised production model remains unfeasible.

"It's one of the things that, honestly, we tried it out here and it's kind of hard to make it at a good enough scale," Engman said. "That was one of the trials on the pilot."

"I think we all see that we need to adapt to what is happening in supply and production all over the world. But if this is the way to do it, I'm not sure."

The photography is by Taran Wilkhu.

Drop02 is on show at Atelier100's pop-up showroom as part of London Design Festival 2023 from 16 to 24 September 2023. See our London Design Festival 2023 guide on Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.

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For Simone Rocha's Spring Summer 2024 catwalk presentation, Irish artist Rory Mullen created the skeleton of a white wedding chapel adorned with tin angels.

"Simone had the idea of it being a skeleton structure from the beginning; a ghost of a building, a moveable monument," Mullen told Dezeen.

For the set, Mullen created a wedding chapel inspired by American artist William Christenberry's sculptures of dilapidated, community-built wooden churches and a 19th-century portable church from County Clare in Ireland known as the Little Ark of Kilbaha.

The Little Ark is a tiny Catholic church on wheels, which was built to be portable at a time when it was forbidden to have permanent Catholic churches in Ireland.

Mullen described the installation for the Rocha show as "an amalgamation of those two references, with some Amish barn buildings thrown in."

"We finished installing it at 1:00pm on show day and started deinstalling it at 5:00pm the same day – so there are some similarities with the Little Ark; up went the structure and then we wheeled it away," he said.

"I love the temporary aspect of set design for fashion shows: feverishly set up, here comes everybody, the show happens and then it all goes back in the van. Pure spectacle! Like a travelling circus," Mullen said.

The theme of Rocha's collection for Spring Summer 2024 was weddings and their anniversaries, with looks referencing the corresponding different traditional gifts, from leather for the third year, through to silver for 25 and signature Rocha pearls for 30, which adorned bespoke Crocs.

Mullen's chapel, in the centre of the show space, presided over the parading models. The timber frame of the simple chapel was decorated with trumpeting angels, cut-out in two-dimensional tin shapes, intended to echo weathervanes.

Lit internally, the chapel acted like a lantern that cast shadows across the show space before the lights came up and the models walked around the structure.

The show was held in the intimate venue of one of the English Ballet's rehearsal spaces in Canning Town, London. Rather than the wedding itself, the idea for the collection was the wedding rehearsal – often held the day before.

This was the first time Mullen rehearsed his set design by making scale models, explaining that he "knew from making the model that the structure would have to be big to face up to such an imposing space."

"If the scale was wrong it could have just looked like a tiny shed sitting in the middle of a giant room," he said.

Mullen's way of working has changed over his career, according to the designer.

"When I started working with set design (some of the work entailed sourcing a sofa, for example) I was very precious and thought that it was completely different to my artistic practice," he explained.

"But now, especially having worked with people like Simone where you are given the opportunity to really have your creative voice heard – to push things with ambition and scale, to use all my skills from drawing, painting and designing, now I don't differentiate between the two. I'm making things and being creative.

For the Spring Summer 2024 show, Rocha had a very clear idea of what she wanted to create with the set, but was also very open to Mullen "trying to place my own interpretation within and alongside her ideas".

"I think because we are friends we have a good creative relationship – I don't see it as 'working with a luxury brand' – it has been a really positive creative experience," Mullen said.

Many of the artists Mullen is inspired by – like Mark Manders, Mike Nelson, Gregor Schneider and John Bock – work in architectural contexts, "delineating space and marking out a world of their own," according to Mullen.

"They all create false environments and multiple rooms; highly theatrical," he said. "They finish a room and then knock a hole in the wall to create another – like the Hackney mole man – another hero!"

Mullen has previously worked with Simone Rocha on a pop-up installation of giant inflatable flowers at Dover Street Market.

Other fashion show set design recently featured on Dezeen includes a mechanical set for Dior and slime dripping from the ceiling of a Prada catwalk set.

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After years of exploring the merging of biotechnology with design, Natsai Audrey Chieza and Christina Agapakis have started what they describe as the "first biodesign lifestyle brand", which launched at London Design Festival.

Titled Normal Phenomena of Life (NPOL), the brand will take the form of an online platform selling objects fabricated with the help of bacteria, algae, fungi, yeast, animal cells and other biological agents.

Biodesigned objects do not just use plant or animal matter as a material but are made by harnessing the natural processes of living organisms.

A silk jacket dyed with bacteria-produced pigment and a letterpress print created with ink grown by algae will be among the first products available on the platform, which will also focus on telling the stories behind the designs and developing consumers' "material literacy", according to Chieza.

"My vision for it is that not only does it story-tell and make visible the work of so many others under one umbrella, it also catalyses innovation and creates a less traditional framework for pushing products through a pipeline," Chieza told Dezeen.

Chieza is the founder of multidisciplinary agency Faber Futures, while Agapakis is the creative director of biotechnology company Gingko Bioworks.

Like many others in their field they hope that biodesigned inks, yarns and building materials, which are non-toxic and resource-efficient, could come to replace high-polluting and petroleum-based materials.

The duo decided to start NPOL following years of collaboration in this field that have seen them set up a residency programme and start the Ferment TV YouTube channel during the pandemic.

With NPOL, they aim to give themselves the ability to develop more prototypes, more quickly, while also setting up the infrastructure so that other biotechnology companies can channel their innovations into products.

The platform's own brand, NPOL Originals, which Chieza describes as "basically our R&D pipeline", will designate goods made together with partner companies "who don't have the bandwidth or don't have a clear pipeline for how they might bring a consumer-facing product to market".

Among the first NPOL Original products will be the Exploring Jacket and Musette, created together with biotech company Mbeu, designer Louise Bennetts and garment manufacturer Fabrika.

The unisex garment and accessory are made from silk that has been batch-dyed with the wild-type bacteria, streptomyces coelicolor, a microbe that naturally produces pigment.

There will also be the print series Lessons from the Living World: Breathe In, made by algal ink manufacturers Living Ink and designer and printmaker Kelvyn Smith.

The non-toxic, carbon-negative black ink is grown from algae, and the triptych's designs represent the role the plant plays in converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Alongside the NPOL Originals, the platform will stock products by other companies. Not all of these will be biotech-enabled, including books and cosmetics, but Chieza and Agapakis hope they will contribute to communicating the brand story in a world where true biodesign is still rare.

The platform will include mycelium goods, which are "still not mainstream enough", according to Chieza, despite their growing presence in design.

"We need ubiquity," said Chieza. "We need it to be everywhere. And it takes a lot of hard work and many years of dedication for that to be the case."

The NPOL founders' mission is to contribute to this ubiquity by creating informed conversations around biotech innovations that consumers may eye with suspicion.

"One of the reasons why we thought it was important to create a place like NPOL is because the boundaries between synthetic and natural are so grey now, with the emergence of these technologies," said Chieza.

"How do we create consumer insights into products that might be engineered with biology? How do we talk about the benefits of that? How do we problematise that in a way that is constructive and opens up critique from all of the right places?" she continued.

"It's very important that we have material literacy around the kinds of technologies that are mediating the living world and that are going to permeate our lives," Chieza added.

Chieza started in biodesign while undertaking her masters in Material Futures at London design school Central Saint Martins, from where she graduated in 2011. She went on to found her biotech-leaning multidisciplinary agency Faber Futures in 2018 and has become a leader in the field.

In 2021, she laid out a manifesto of five principles to advance the field of biodesign for Dezeen.

NPOL will launch during the London Design Festival with the exhibition This Is Living, on at the Design District, Building D4 in Greenwich from 16 to 24 September. For more information about events, exhibitions and talks, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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Collaborations with artists, architects and designers are key to ensuring the longevity of a heritage brand and modernising design classics for a new generation, says Longchamp artistic director Sophie Delafontaine in this interview.

Speaking to Dezeen at the luxury handbag brand's showroom in London, Delafontaine said that though the push-and-pull of collaboration can prove tricky, it ultimately serves to force a heritage brand like Longchamp to develop outside of its comfort zone.

"It's our own responsibility as a company to make the best products that we can," Delafontaine explained. "[We create] iconic products that have a very strong character [and] are very well made, but my role is to push them."

The brand has recently launched a collaboration with Italian art magazine Toiletpaper.

Best known for its origami-informed Le Pliage tote bag, Longchamp was founded by Delafontaine's grandfather, Jean Cassegrain, as a tobacco and smoking accessories brand in post-war Paris.

"We don't need the same type of product now that we did 15 years ago"

Delafontaine, who grew up above the brand's first shop in the city's 9th arrondissement and previously designed for French luxury childrenswear brand Bonpoint, has been at the helm as artistic director since the early nineties.

She noted that some Longchamp products, like the Roseau leather shoulder bag, have gone through several redesigns over that time in order to keep up with changing trends.

"It's like Chanel's number five perfume – the juice has been remade many times. The quality of the material has improved, as well as the shape, detail and proportion."

"We certainly don't exactly need the same type of product now that we did 15 years ago because we have everything in our mobile phones and the bags are smaller," she added.

"It's hard to collaborate with architects"

Collaborations have become a mainstay of Longchamp during Delafontaine's tenure, with Turner-nominated artist Tracey Emin, Japanese design firm Nendo, Hood By Air design director Shayne Oliver and British designer Thomas Heatherwick all producing highly-publicised collections for the brand in the past three decades.

The key to managing these collaborations successfully, Delafontaine says, is "to keep the DNA of Longchamp" – in most cases, the structure and design of a Longchamp bag – while introducing "the DNA of the people [the brand] is collaborating with".

"The idea is for [collaborations] to feel both Longchamp and their universe," she says. "I don't like to impose too many restrictions because, for me, the idea is really to catch as much of that creativity as I can."

"The only restriction is our capability to produce it. It's always a challenge, but it's a great challenge for our know-how."

One such designer who challenged the brand's ability to produce was Heatherwick, whose 2004 Zip Bag was "very hard" to realise, Delafointaine recalls.

A zip wound in horizontal concentric rings ran the length of the cowhide leather bag, allowing it to expand and contract like an accordion.

"It was really nearly like an architectural bag," Delafontaine explained, citing the malleability of leather as counterintuitive to Heatherwick's carefully engineered design.

"And Thomas also has a very precise vision," she added. "So it was super hard, but we were very happy to be able to make it."

Though now a rare find on resale sites, the bag that Heatherwick pitched and produced for Longchamp was the beginning of a long-running relationship, which saw the British designer commissioned to design the brand's global flagship store in Manhattan in 2006.

Now, Delafontaine says, Heatherwick is currently in the process of completing a "very surprising" renovation of the same store.

The Heatherwick collaboration wasn't Longchamp's first foray into architecture: the brand tapped French architect Paul Andreu, the lead architect on Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, to design a bag for its 50th anniversary in the late nineties.

"It's hard to collaborate with architects," she admitted. "They are used to doing hard things and I am used to doing soft."

"So sometimes it's difficult because their product is going to stay exactly as it is. My products are going to live."

Toiletpaper is a "very optimistic, playful vision of life"

If architecture is an outlier for Delafontaine, then Longchamp's latest collaboration with art title Toiletpaper has a richer precedent.

It follows on from collections with Emin – which Delfontaine cites as the brand's "first major collaboration" – Swedish-French graffiti artist André Saraiva and American-British artist Sarah Morris.

"I think [art] is a way of being creative without constraints, which is not my case as a designer – I create with constraints," says Delafontaine.

"Of course, I've been following Toiletpaper for a very long time. It's really a very optimistic, playful vision of life, which I really love and which is also something I try to input when creating at Longchamp."

Founded in 2010 by Italian artist and photographer duo Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, the bi-annual photo magazine is known for highly saturated images that satirise the zeitgeist.

Toiletpaper's designs for Longchamp's Le Pliage range feature everything from a French bulldog smoking an archival Longchamp pipe designed by Delafontaine's grandfather to a flying horse.

Despite its many modern reinventions, Longchamp has retained the same logo for the past 70 years – a jockey on a galloping racehorse that nods to the origin of the brand's name, which Delafontaine's grandfather borrowed from the Longchamp Racecourse in Paris.

"I think we have an emblem that is speaking about what Longchamp really is," says Delafontaine. "He's a winner."

Asked why the brand has chosen to keep the same logo, she replied: "Well, because we like it."

The photography is courtesy of Longchamp.

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Art collective MSCHF has collaborated with footwear brand Crocs to design a pair of oversized yellow boots with "distinctive" holes.

Called Big Red Boots (Yellow), the shoes are the latest iteration of jumbo boots by MSCHF, which previously designed a similar pair of red boots modelled on those worn by the manga character Astro Boy.

The yellow boots feature the same cartoony shape, characterised by a chunky upper section that extends to the mid-calf. However, they are also punctuated by the recognisable holes that define Crocs' Classic Clogs.

A heel strap emblazoned with the Crocs logo is also attached to the back of the boots.

 

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They were worn by rapper Tommy Cash

"We're mixing two samples to create something totally transformed and instantly recognisable," said MSCHF, which will make the footwear available in a limited drop next month.

"Crocs' distinctive hole pattern and strap get transposed onto the Big Red Boot silhouette," added the art collective.

The yellow boots were debuted by Estonian rapper Tommy Cash during the Rick Owens Spring Summer 2024 menswear show at Paris Fashion Week in June, while he was playfully dressed and performing as a mime artist in the front row.

MSCHF has also released imagery of American media personality Paris Hilton wearing the shoes combined with a bright yellow and black motorcycle-style outfit.

Known for its alternative creations, MSCHF has previously collaborated with musician Lil Nas X to create Nike trainers customised with human blood – a move that resulted in Nike suing the art collective.

Recently, MSCHF designed a replica of a Louis Vuitton bag that is "smaller than a grain of salt" as a critique of the world of luxury fashion.

Other footwear projects that have sparked conversation include a chunky, bristly running shoe outsole by Central Saint Martins graduate Kiki Grammatopoulos, who created the footwear to help spread plants and seeds in cities as part of a project she's titled Rewild the Run.

The images are courtesy of MSCHF.

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The latest edition of our Dezeen Debate newsletter features a rewilding trainer that scatters plants and seeds. Subscribe to Dezeen Debate now.

Central Saint Martins graduate Kiki Grammatopoulous has designed a running shoe outsole that helps to disseminate plants and seeds. Grammatopoulous aimed to imitate epizoochory by covering the trainer's outsole in tiny hooks that grip onto dirt and plant matter as the wearer treads.

Commenters were fascinated by the trainer. One thought the design was "an amazing idea for humans to help nature". Whilst another highlighted that the project could "harm other aspects of nature and wildlife".

Other stories in this week's newsletter that fired up the comments section included Elon Musk's launch of an AI startup, an art museum in New York by Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo and a holiday home in a world war two bunker by Corstorphine & Wright.

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Dezeen Debate is sent every Thursday and features a selection of the best reader comments and most talked-about stories. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Debate or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to our other newsletters; Dezeen Agenda is sent every Tuesday containing a selection of the most important news highlights from the week, Dezeen Daily is our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours and Dezeen In Depth is sent on the last Friday of every month and delves deeper into the major stories shaping architecture and design.

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As the 2023 Women's World Cup kicks off today in Australia and New Zealand, we have rounded up the kits of all 32 nations taking part in the football tournament.

From 20 July to 20 August 2023, this year's Women's World Cup will see 32 teams competing across eight different groups, in kits designed by the likes of Nike, Adidas, Puma and Reebok.

This year, sportswear brands have reinterpreted the national flags and unique terrains of each country as abstract geometric designs, while incorporating everything from recycled materials to period-proof shorts.

Below are kits from all 32 nations that are playing in the Women's World Cup, arranged in alphabetical order:

Argentina by Adidas

Adidas designed 10 out of 32 kits for this year's tournament, most of which were informed by nature. All of the company's kits are also made from 50 per cent recycled polyester and 50 per cent marine plastic salvaged by environmental organisation Parley for the Oceans.

For the Argentinian away kit, Adidas referenced the country's diverse landscapes including the Serranía de Hornocal mountains, which are abstracted as painterly streaks of pale green and coral pink.

Australia by Nike

As one of the hosts of the 2023 Women's World Cup, Australia's team will be outfitted in kits with an all-over marbled pattern that references the golden watten – a flower that is native to the country.

In line with this theme, the jersey is largely finished in yellow but also features dark green piping and side panels, while the Nike logo and Australia's crest are embroidered in green. Inside the jersey, Nike placed a hidden graphic that reads "For All".

Brazil by Nike

The 2023 Brazil home kit was designed to draw on the country's natural beauty. Yellow and green in colour, the shirt has a bespoke all-over fern pattern that represents the "uniqueness of the team and its players", according to Nike.

The away kit, meanwhile, sees vibrant blue and green paired with a leaf pattern that references the Amazon rainforest and covers the sleeves and shoulder panels of the shirt. Each of the kits has a V-neck shape that is piped in green.

Canada by Nike

A geometric pattern informed by the maple leaf forms the print on Canada's 2023 home jersey. The black-and-red print is a "digitally-inspired mosaic" that modernises the iconic symbol of Canada, according to Nike.

Although the away kit may look simple, platinum fibres are integrated into its nearly all-white jersey to create a subtle all-over pattern with depth and dimension.

China PR by Nike

The design for China's kit is based on the xiangyun symbol – a stylised cloud motif that is traditionally associated with good luck and fortune.

The home kit is primarily red in colour, with the xiangyun symbol subtly covering the entire kit, while the sleeves, neck and logos were finished in yellow. The away kit sees these colours inversed, with yellow being the primary hue.

Colombia by Adidas

Adidas used dramatic shades of pink and purple to create the Colombian away kit, whose design references the reflections on the surface of the Caño Cristales River, known as the River of Five Colours.

Colombia's traditional federation colours were reimagined through the lens of flowing water, while Adidas's recognisable three stripes are emblazoned across the jersey's sleeves in a bright shade of yellow.

Costa Rica by Adidas

While Costa Rica's home kit comes in a traditional red hue with dark blue and white accents, Adidas also designed an all-white jersey for away games.

The pared-back away kit is characterised by thin gold stripes that run parallel down each jersey, which comes with matching all-white shorts.

Denmark by Hummel

Comics served as a key source of inspiration for sportswear brand Hummel when designing the kit for Denmark's national team.

The red-and-white jersey features chunky geometric patterns informed by pop art – a movement that emerged during the mid-1950s. According to Hummel, the design intends to celebrate "just how cool the Danish women are".

England by Nike

Nike designed dark blue shorts for the England women's team after players voiced their concerns about wearing white while on their period.

The shorts are integrated with an ultrathin absorbent liner so that players can bleed more comfortably and discreetly during a match. Graphic designer Neville Brody also collaborated with Nike to create the typography for the team's jerseys, with lettering that references the art deco origins of London's Wembley Stadium.

France by Nike

An all-over print in classic blue and white covers the French home and away kits for the 2023 Women's World Cup. The print draws on France's rich artistic history via a pattern of abstracted brush strokes.

The jersey's sleeves also feature a paint splatter design that continues the painterly references across the kit.

Germany by Adidas

Adidas paid tribute to the woodlands that make up a third of Germany's landmass when designing the country's World Cup kit.

Tree-style graphics finished in a palette of forest greens were emblazoned across the jersey, which is finished with gold accents.

 

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Haiti by Saeta

Haiti's home kit is characterised by a repeated diamond pattern across the shirt, with the word Haiti emblazoned alongside a crown-like design.

The home kit is coloured in a deep blue with red accents, while the away kit is white with blue and red accents.

Italy by Adidas

Italy's abundance of marble informed the kit that Adidas designed for the country's women's team, with swirly patterns that reference the stone's distinctive veining.

While the home kit is all-blue and features a more subtle marbled pattern, the off-white away jersey is characterised by dramatic navy blue-and-gold veining.

Jamaica by Adidas and Grace Wales Bonner

British-Jamaican fashion designer and frequent Adidas collaborator Grace Wales Bonner designed the home and away kits for Jamaica's national team, widely referred to as the Reggae Girlz.

Black, gold and green feature across the home jersey, with fine pinstripe details that were designed to echo the "subtle groove" of Jamaican music and style.

The away jersey has a collar and cuffs that were finished in Wales Bonner's signature crochet texture.

Japan by Adidas

Characterised by delicate pink and purple hues arranged in a sweeping formation, Japan's away kit takes cues from the colour of the sunrise over Mount Fuji, according to Adidas.

The home kit includes a blue and white jersey with an all-blue back and a Japanese flag positioned on the neck.

Korea Republic by Nike

Korea's home kit is red with trims and panelling finished in pink. It follows a similar look to Korea's 2002 World Cup kit, applying angular panelling across the chest and neckline. Pink also runs along the sleeve trim, collar and side panels.

The away kit, on the other hand, features red and blue side panels with the rest of the shirt finished in white.

قميص جديد، تحدي جديد، هل أنتم مستعدون؟

Morocco in #FIFAWWC 2023 : New jersey, new challenge, are you ready for more ? #DimaMaghrib #OneGameOneFamily #AtlasLionesses pic.twitter.com/oUJ7BQnT2O

— Équipe du Maroc (@EnMaroc) June 23, 2023

Morocco by Puma

Morocco's kit for the 2023 Women's World Cup uses the country's signature shades of red and green. The body of the shirt is red and covered in a subtle jagged stripe pattern, which crosses diagonally over the body.

Green trim frames the jersey's V-shaped neckline, with the Puma logo featured on the front of the shirt and on the sleeve in gold.

Netherlands by Nike

The Dutch kit uses the team's lioness crest – meant to symbolise power, strength, and ability – paired with tones of blue to create an abstract all-over print that nods to the Netherlands' tin-glazed earthenware pottery.

The country's away kit combines a bright orange colour scheme, which originally symbolised the royal family, with a similar design to the team's former kits.

New Zealand by Nike

Made with recycled fibres, New Zealand's home kit includes a print that was informed by the silver fern – a plant that has long been associated with power, strength and the country's national identity. The graphic is realised via spray paint-style strokes, applied all over the kit.

The away kit employs a more simple look, featuring blue shorts and a white shirt complete with blue panelling and a fern-print trim.

Nigeria by Nike

Nigeria's away kit features a print inspired by Adire textiles – a type of cloth that is indigo-dyed and produced by Yoruba women in the country's southwest. The print has a stacked stair-like design that is repeated across the kit.

The home kit marks a departure from the team's traditional dark green kit and instead employs a bright green that covers the entire shirt and shorts. The sleeve cuff also includes a stair-print trim, which ties it to the away kit.

Norway by Nike

Norway's kit for the 2023 Women's World Cup keeps it simple by sticking to the colours of the national flag – red, blue and white – which are combined in various configurations across the kit, its trims, panels and neckline.

The home kit is a primarily red shirt with dark blue side panelling and sleeve trim detailing. And the away kit is a white shirt with navy blue side panels and red sleeve trims.

Panama by Reebok

Reebok also used a palette of red, white and blue to create kits for Panama's national team in homage to the country's national flag.

Hexagonal graphic prints were emblazoned across the garments in reference to the pattern of goal nets. The red home jersey features the hexagonal print across the torso while the white away and goalie jerseys have raglan sleeves featuring the pattern.

Philippines by Adidas

Adidas designed three kits for the national team of the Philippines, nicknamed the Filipinas.

While the home kit consists of an all-blue jersey and shorts, the white away kit features graphic stripes arranged across the torso, while collars and hems are decked in blue and yellow stripes.

Adidas also designed a third kit for the team that is finished in a bold red hue with delicate white pinstripes.

Portugal by Nike

Nike looked to celebrate football as an art form when designing the away kit for Portugal, featuring an all-over print that references both street art and the country's national flag.

The shirt is off-white in colour and includes a fragmented print in tones of green and red. The home kit employs a more traditional design and has red-and-green colouring.

 

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Republic of Ireland by Castore

Marking the Republic of Ireland's first Women's World Cup, the team will wear a kit that pays homage to the country's national flag.

The home kit is a mostly green kit with a white-and-gold trim. The away kit consists of a white jersey covered in thin green rings while the arms and neck are finished in green with orange accents.

 

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South Africa by Le Coq Sportif

Created by French sports brand Le Coq Sportif, South Africa's home kit is a largely all-yellow uniform with dark green accents.

A subtle geometric pattern in a lighter yellow hue covers the home jersey, while the away kit is dark green with a similar geometric pattern and gold accents.

Spain by Adidas

A subtle underwater scene depicting delicate purple corals was chosen for Spain's away jersey, referencing the reefs that can be found along the country's coastline while drawing a parallel with the reefs of Australia and New Zealand.

To match this marine motif, the kit also features thick purple piping and dark pink accents along the sleeves and collar.

Sweden by Adidas

Adidas paid homage to Sweden's glacial rivers and ice caps when creating the country's jersey, which is defined by blotchy blue graphics.

Bright yellow accents also feature on the shirt, incorporating one of the key colours of the country's national flag.

Coming to the Southern Alps of New Zealand...

Puma release their brand new Switzerland jersey for the Women's World Cup this summer! pic.twitter.com/YaCSWFm6jD

— swiss wnt (@swisswnt) June 13, 2023

Switzerland by Puma

Switzerland's kit includes a layered mountain graphic across the shirt, designed by Puma to reference the country's alpine terrain. The colour scheme for the home kit combines various shades of red with a white trim.

The mountainous graphic starts at the bottom of the shirt in a deep oxblood hue and fades to a lighter red as it progresses further up the shirt in a subtle gradient.

USA by Nike

When designing home and away kits for the US women's team, Nike took cues from the art movement of abstract impressionism, which originated in New York City in the 1940s.

The home kit features a striking drip-paint pattern, designed to reference the energy of the team, while the away kit is emblazoned with a bespoke stars-and-stripes graphic that nods to the national flag. Red blades jut out from the jersey's neckline, mimicking the tips of stars.

 

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Vietnam by Grand Sport

Grand Sport took cues from Vietnam's national flag when designing the home kit for the country's women's team, which is characterised by a deep red colour and a subtle intersecting diamond pattern that nods to the flag's yellow star.

The away kit, on the other hand, is finished in white with a grey marble pattern.

 

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Zambia by KoPa

Sportswear brand KoPa designed a light orange jersey with black accents for Zambia's home kit, which includes thick piping around the collar and slanted stripes underneath the country badge.

Multicoloured stripes were emblazoned across the green away kit to represent the hues found on the Zambian flag.

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Central Saint Martins graduate Kiki Grammatopoulos has created a chunky, bristly running shoe outsole that helps to spread plants and seeds in cities, as part of a project she's titled Rewild the Run.

Grammatopoulos used biomimicry in the project, borrowing elements from nature to create her sneaker outsole, which is densely covered in tiny hooks that grip onto dirt and plant matter as the wearer treads.

The hooks allow the shoes to mimic the phenomenon of epizoochory, where seeds are transported by becoming attached to an animal's fur.

Grammatopoulos looked mainly to two plants for her design: the cocklebur, which produces typical burr seeds, and the grapple plant, whose fruit is covered in small barbs.

The designer said she wanted to use fashion and sport to engage individuals with the cause of rewilding, and through that to encourage a wider rethink about our relationship with nature.

Rewilding is a form of ecological restoration that focuses on expanding woodlands and allowing nature to take its course with minimum human interference.

"I wanted to explore our relationship, or lack thereof, with the wild in our cities, and how these urban environments would look if ecology and biodiversity took over — some of which we saw over Covid-19," Grammatopoulos told Dezeen.

"Our awareness of natural systems is frail, particularly in cities, even while being fundamental to humanity's ongoing existence."

"For there to be any hope in positively evolving our cities to be able to support and encourage the existence of both human and non-human species requires a set of processes that get everyone involved in a radical transformation."

As well as seeds, Grammatopoulos' outsole design nods to another element from her research — the role in rewilding played by "keystone species".

Keystone species are those that have an outsized role in holding their ecosystem together, and when it comes to restoring nature in the UK and Europe, one of these is regarded to be the bison, which is now being reintroduced in areas after a century of extinction.

The outsoles' chunky appearance and cloven tread are a homage to bison hoofs and the animal's role in promoting the movement of other species by stamping pathways through the forest.

"Unfortunately it wasn't possible to introduce bison to King's Cross, so I continued to explore how the public could emulate these keystone species' intricacies instead through product design," said Grammatopoulos.

"Ultimately I believe we don't just need our cities to be wild, we need to be a little wild ourselves," she continued.

Grammatopoulos created Rewild the Run in her Material Futures masters course at London university Central Saint Martins. The design is intended to be a conceptual representation of what future rewilding footwear could look like — not the final product.

Her demonstration prototype was modelled to fit over a standard New Balance trail running shoe, and 3D printed in nylon polymer.

Ideally, Grammatopoulos would like the product to be 3D printed or injection-moulded in a performance rubber in the future, if she can find a manufacturing partner.

Currently, she is testing her designs with the London-based running community Run the Boroughs, which she says is allowing her to observe the effectiveness of sport as a vehicle to rewild urban environments.

Rewilding is growing in popularity as an approach to tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. Writing for Dezeen, architect Christina Monteiro called for a strategy to rewild cities to create a better environment for children and designer Sebastian Cox has rewilded a golf course in south London.

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Fashion house Balenciaga has shown its 52nd couture collection, which featured a 3D-printed Joan of Arc-style armour dress and hand-painted trompe l'oeil denim, fur and leather.

The house's latest couture collection took place on 5 July at Balenciaga's 10 Avenue George V atelier and couture salon in Paris, which recently underwent an extension that was completed by architecture studio Sub.

The show began with an archival look that saw Balenciaga's creative director Demna reinterpret a design by the house's founder, Cristóbal Balenciaga, made between the years 1964 to 1968.

A series of sharp, tailored looks, which are typically associated with couture, followed and featured curved-V necklines that drew on the hemlines of Cristóbal Balenciaga's tailored jackets.

As the presentation progressed and more classical couture looks left the salon catwalk, trompe l'œil fabrics made from hand-painted raw linen and constructed into suiting began to emerge.

The hand-painted raw linen looks replicated the appearance of fabrics and materials such as full grain leather, houndstooth and python. Each of the garments featured hand-painted buttons and tailoring details including lapels, pockets and pleats.

Dimension was added to the raw linen via oil paint brushstrokes, which according to Balenciaga can take up to 280 hours to complete.

A duo of trompe l'œil fur coats were also created from oil-painted linen painted by hand. In an effort to reveal the hand-painted quality of the coats, the edges of the cuffs and bottom of the coats were purposely left unfinished to expose the hundreds of brushstrokes and raw linen beneath.

Handpainted trompe l'œil jeans were also created from cotton covered in oil paint.

Windblown outerwear, such as sculpted scarves and cotton floor-length trench coats, appeared to be frozen in time. The garments were hand-sculpted and constructed using knitted, bonded liners that were used to reinforce the external fabric to achieve the windswept look.

"Taking inspiration from a piece by British painter and draughtsman Lucian Freud, the "Coup De Vent" overcoat is designed to look like it's blowing in the wind," Balenciaga explained.

"An innovative knitted material is bonded to the inside of the wool and allows the piece to be shaped by hand using heated irons to reflect the wind's momentum," the brand added.

"This process requires two days of work and makes each piece unique."

The final look of the collection replaced the traditional bridal wear that typically closes a couture show. It saw Balenciaga present a 3D-printed armour dress printed from galvanised resin and polished in chrome, with a hem that skimmed millimetres above the carpets of the salon.

"Rigid and reflective, it embodies a temporal crossroads, fusing classical techniques with cutting-edge advancements. It also demonstrates a new reality," said Balenciaga.

"Maybe [Joan of Arc] wouldn't have been burned at the stake for wearing men's clothes if she was wearing that," Demna told Vogue following the show.

 

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The armour dress closed the show

It is not the first time Balenciaga has showcased armour-style looks in a show. For the brand's Autumn Winter 2021 collection, titled Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, it presented a series of Chevalier boots, shoes and gloves within a video game presentation.

At Balenciaga's 51st couture collection, the brand collaborated with Danish audio brand Bang & Olufsen to create a limited-edition bag that it described as "part bag, part Bluetooth sound system".

The photography is courtesy of Balenciaga.

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Designer Alice Potts has created a collection of baseball caps covered in crystals grown from the sweat of the people who have worn them.

Potts asked a group of eight people, all with different backgrounds and lifestyles, to wear the baseball caps for a six-week period as they went about their everyday lives for her INPerspire project.

"Sweat covers us in a similar way to clothing – like a second skin," the designer told Dezeen.

The people chosen for the experiment ranged from ones with office jobs to people who were into rave culture, people with a vegan lifestyle and people who work in sport.

The crystallisation process began when the individual's sweat soaked into the cap's fibres.

After being worn for six weeks, the caps were then placed in salt a solution to let the sweat crystallise over a 10-hour period.

"The caps are already saturated with each individual's sweat to act like a seed within the fibres, meaning that when placed into the solution it acts like a jigsaw growing from within the material," Potts said.

"For each litre [of sweat], you can get between 10-50 grams of saturated salt solution," she added.

The crystals will gradually fall off but can remain "for years".

"Sweat crystals naturally adhere to the material they are grown on, but over time, they will gradually fall off due to their adhesion weakening," said Potts.

"The lifespan of sweat crystals can extend for years depending on how they are maintained."

During the process, Potts observed that there were trends in the types of sweat crystals produced depending on the individual and lifestyle factors of the group.

"Every person has different sweat based on a multitude of factors, which can be further analysed using chromatography to identify their precise biological makeup," said Potts.

"One notable visual distinction between men and women lies in the structure of their sweat crystals. Females tend to exhibit sharply pointed crysals, while males typically produce flatter peaks," she explained.

Through the project, Potts intended to highlight the possibilities of sustainable design methods and biomaterials, exploring the ways in which art pieces can be incorporated into fashion.

"I'd always wanted to create something with wearable sweat crystals, transforming my artwork into fashion pieces," Potts said.

"By examining individuals who engage in sports, follow vegan diets, lead active office lifestyles and immerse themselves in rave culture, the collection challenges conventional notions of sweat and its representation in fashion."

Potts has a history of experimenting with developing biomaterials and has previously created collections using sweat and tears, as well as bioplastic face shields made from food waste.

Other biomaterial fashion stories recently featured on Dezeen include Stella McCartney's jumpsuit made with iridescent BioSequins and a biomaterial fabric made from bacterial fermentation.

The photography is by James Stopforth.

INPerspire is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada from May 27 to October 9 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Curator Mhairi Maxwell has selected five key items from the V&A Dundee's Tartan exhibition, which aims to "take a radical new look" at the pattern.

Taking place at the V&A Dundee in Scotland, Tartan aims to celebrate the pattern and the many ways it has been used and interpreted.

"Our aim is to take a radical new look at a globally recognised design," explained Maxwell.

"Surprise at every turn was a motivation for us when designing and curating the exhibition," she continued. "Along the way, we also bust some important myths, for example tartan's elusive origins as distinctly Scottish and the so-called ban of tartans post-Culloden."

The exhibition contains over 300 objects that chart the history of the pattern, from the oldest tartan ever discovered and tartan worn by Bonnie Prince Charlie to the high fashion designs of Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen.

However, pieces in the exhibition were arranged thematically rather than chronologically. It is arranged into five sections – The Grid, Tartan and Innovation, Tartan and Identity, Tartan and Power, and Transcendental Tartan.

"We have for the first time, taken a design-led approach to explode tartan's grids," explained Maxwell. "We start by unpicking the rules of the grid and the basic principles of colour, pattern and proportion which make up tartan's instantly recognisable setts [patterns]."

"We look at how these rules of the grid have inspired creativity for designers not only working in textile design and fashion, but also in an incredible range of different design disciplines including architecture, art, film, performance, and even data visualisation, science and technology," she continued. "These rules of the grid are also there to be deconstructed and disrupted, offering unlimited possibilities."

Maxwell hopes that the exhibition will draw attention to tartan's broad range and how the pattern is constantly evolving.

"I think one of the biggest misunderstandings of tartan is that it has stood still, being one of the most documented and regulated textiles in the world," she said.

"The Scottish Register of Tartans now has over 11,000 entries. In fact, it is an endlessly adaptable pattern, and since at least the 16th century it has been reformed and reinvented by diverse communities to express themselves or communicate their cause," she continued.

"Tartan is adored and derided, a source of pride and embarrassment, and is both cool and kitsch. We embrace tartan's conflicted meanings in the exhibition."

Read on for Maxwell's highlights from the exhibition.

Skirt, Belgium, by Jurgi Persoons (2001)

"This skirt's ragged tartan scraps are what the designer calls 'trash couture', where he creates beautiful new designs from selvedge or waste."

"So much of our understanding of tartan and its histories is made up of fragments, from the oldest piece of tartan found in Scotland in a Glen Affric peat bog dating to the 16th century, to the textile relics supposedly cut from Bonnie Prince Charlie's trews."

"Even from the smallest fragment a whole unique tartan pattern can be reconstructed, making it one of the most identifiable textiles in the world."

The Scottish Gael, Edinburgh, by James Loganon (1831)

"In 1831, James Logan's The Scottish Gael was one of the first published catalogues of tartans and was also a strikingly visual attempt to graphically study their patterns, notating thread counts and colourways of hundreds of setts."

"Although his attempt was deemed ultimately flawed when one compared his prints and watercolours to the original samples he was trying to record, with a keen design interest he had nevertheless recognised the rules of the grid and how incredible variation was possible from its limitations. Designers and their clients to this day are free to interpret and reinvent the rules of the grid."

[no title], New York/ Marfa, Texas, by Donald Judd Woodcut (1992 – 1993)

The American artist Donald Judd was fascinated by the symmetrical construction of textiles. These included Turkish rugs which he installed in his New York studio and the tartans which he loved to collect (he was often pictured in a plaid shirt).

He was probably interested in how tartan's repetitive grids, even when fragmented, related to his interest in the vocabulary of forms and their occupation of space. In this series of prints, each framed 'sett' rationalises the tartan grid to building blocks of colour and lines.

Though flat, these prints employ the idea of warp and weft to create the perception of depth. The blocks of colour occupy negative space while the white creates positive space.

Line studies of Tartan, the Netherlands, by Dom Hans van der Laan (1968)

"Dutch architect and Benedictine monk Dom Hans van der Laan was directly inspired by tartan's rules of the grid."

"While only a few of his buildings were realised, including the Abbey at St Benedictusberg, his treatises were influential, and he used the tartan grid as a concept in his teaching as a founding member of the Bossche School of Architecture."

"Pieces of Grey Douglas tartan were found in his archive held at St. Benedictusberg, and he directly studied and applied the proportions he found in these to his architectural theory and practice. He cleverly and imaginatively demonstrated how the proportionate widths of tartan's warp and weft can provide a balanced blueprint for planning built space, and he also recognised that these grids would bend to the landscape and environment."

Red-white-blue bag, Hong Kong, by Lee Wah (2023)

"This iconic everyday cheap textile originally used by the construction industry, has travelled the world."

"This laundry bag was bought for less than a dollar in the Park Slope Food co-op in Brooklyn and came through our People's Tartan call-out, belonging to Peter Kim. Luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, have made their own versions but it nevertheless remains a symbol of working-class labour and identity."

Tartan is at the V&A Dundee until 14 January 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Italian fashion house Fendi has collaborated with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to design accessories that reference ancient Japanese craft techniques, which were presented at Fendi's latest menswear show.

The accessories were showcased during Fendi's Spring Summer 2024 menswear show, which took place in June at the Piuarch-designed Fendi Factory during Pitti Uomo – a prestigious biannual menswear fair in Florence.

For the collaboration, Fendi's Peekaboo bag, Baguette Soft Trunk and Flow Sneakers were reinterpreted by Kuma using natural materials and ancient Japanese craft techniques.

A number of the bags were constructed using waranshi, a hybrid of washi paper made from cotton and tree bark fibres that is traditionally used across origami, lantern-making and kimono detailing.

The waranshi is used as a soft textural fabric and forms the structural base of the bag. Its speckled, imperfect surface, which has visual similarities to handmade paper, is used as the ornamentation across the exterior of the bags.

The imperfect waranshi was used across the exterior of the Peekaboo bag, Baguette Soft Trunk and Flow trainers.

A second bag was constructed from pale birch bark, which the brand explained nodded to Fendi's Pequin-stripe pattern. The raw bark was used across the exterior of the bag and has an internal frame and hardware details constructed from Tuscan olivewood.

"I've always thought of Kengo Kuma as a master of naturalist architecture, he was one of the first to understand the importance of building nature into architecture both inside and outside," said Fendi artistic director of accessories and menswear, Silvia Venturini Fendi.

"His work mixes the future with his roots in a very essential way. I feel a sense of kinship with his Japanese approach to savoir-faire – I think it is such a strong shared value between Japan and Italy," Fendi continued.

"Our partnership with Kengo Kuma creates not only a dialogue between Fendi and architecture but a conversation with another designer and their choice of artisans and materials."

The internal structure of Fendi's Peekaboo bag was constructed using methods referencing yatara ami weaving, a technique that uses fine bamboo pieces to create woven lattice forms.

This traditional weaving technique was also used to inform the shape of the sole on the Flow trainers, in which Kuma created two styles for the show that consisted of a recycled poly-cotton knit upper and a waranshi upper.

The architect also reimagined the Flow trainer completely, introducing a laced and zipped upper that was paired with a cork insole and a moulded sole in an undyed, biobased ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA).

"It is important that Fendi's artistic projects continue to grow outside of Italy, as we recognise that creativity at scale is never the work of one person: it's a cooperation between hands and minds and different talents and resources from around the world," said Silvia Venturini Fendi.

"Nature and craft have always been at the centre of my work as an architect and a designer," said Kengo Kuma. "When Fendi asked me to reflect on their bags and shoes, I thought of them like small architectural projects on a human scale."

"I have transformed some of Silvia Venturini Fendi's signature men's designs with traditional Japanese techniques and materials, showing our shared passion for nature, lightness, and innovative design."

For Fendi's Autumn Winter 2023 menswear show, the brand collaborated with Italian artist Nico Vascellari who transformed its headquarters into a "roller disco pinball machine" runway.

More recently at Paris Fashion Week, Villa Eugénie created a "mechanical garden" for Dior's Spring Summer 2024 menswear show.

The photography is courtesy of Fendi.

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Fashion brand Ganni and materials company Polybion have debuted a jacket grown by bacteria during the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, marking a milestone for bacterial cellulose as a leather alternative.

The prototype outerwear piece was fabricated by feeding bacteria with mango fruit waste from the agriculture industry, converting the sugar it contains into cellulose as part of the bacteria's natural digestive process.

Once stabilised, this bacterial cellulose membrane was tanned much like cowhide and used by Ganni to create a mottled yellow blazer finished with decorative silver buttons.

The jacket made its debut during the sustainability forum Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen.

A growing cohort of designers and material researchers have experimented with using bacterial cellulose in recent years to create everything from "backyard compostable trainers" and leather-like lamps to cosmetic packaging that looks like paper or plastic.

But Polybion co-founder Axel Gómez-Ortigoza says the collaboration with Ganni marks "the first showcase of a product by a global brand" using the material, which the company has named Celium.

"This marks the culmination of a decade of work in bacterial cellulose," he told Dezeen.

Bacterial cellulose could be more sustainable than mycelium

As the fashion industry races to find more sustainable substitutes for leather, a number of brands including Ganni, Adidas and Hermès have already started experimenting with mycelium leather, which is grown from the root structure of fungi.

But Polybion claims that its Celium leather made from bacterial cellulose requires fewer natural resources in its production. It also has a quarter of the carbon footprint compared to mycelium leathers while producing higher yields, according to a preliminary lifecycle assessment (LCA).

"This is due to a state-of-the-art vertical biofabrication system similar to indoor farming that is very efficient and uses solar-powered electricity and heat, going from waste to finished material under the same roof," Gómez-Ortigoza said.

The process relies on bacteria that have been genetically modified to produce cellulose with the performance qualities to rival both real and fake leathers.

The resulting material already outperforms mycelium leather, Gómez-Ortigoza claims, and is "about 80 per cent of the way [there] compared to animal leather".

Leather alternative still relies on petroleum-based plastics

However, Celium still relies on a polyurethane coating for durability combined with a synthetic or bio-based backing – depending on the application.

Alongside any dyes or pigments used, this significantly impairs the material's ability to be discarded without adverse effects on the environment at the end of its life.

"There is still a road to walk when it comes to performance in order to out-perform animal leathers," Gómez-Ortigoza says.

"This will be achieved by a steady learning and improvement cycle of both the stabilisation process, the growth process and via gene-tuning of the strains."

Currently, Polybion is also working on increasing the output of its factory in Irapuato, Mexico, which the company claims is the "world's first industrial-scale facility for the production of bacterial cellulose".

The facility is on track to reach is maximum production capacity of 1.1 million square feet per year by the end of 2023.

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LA studio PlayLab Inc and construction company California Skateparks have designed a temporary skatepark for Vans in Paris that was partly made from clear plexiglass to reference the nearby Louvre museum.

Unveiled in the French capital during Men's Fashion Week, the skate installation was located at the Pont Alexandre III bridge along the River Seine.

The structure featured a series of skateable elements arranged atop a rectilinear plinth, which was patterned with the distinctive checkerboard motif associated with the American skateboarding shoe brand Vans.

Skatelite was used to create the plinth – a highly durable solid paper composite material that is typically used as riding surfaces for skateboarding and other extreme sports.

Various classic ramps were created from transparent plexiglass and arranged across the plinth in a skateable formation.

"Clear plexiglass lets the audiences watch skating from inside the ramps and references the iconic Louvre pyramid nearby," said PlayLab Inc co-founders Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin.

A series of chunky checkerboard walls were also positioned atop the plinth, complete with LED screens that revealed live stream skate footage that was captured on 14 CCTV cameras throughout the week. The cameras were also embedded into the installation.

"Together, we wanted to create a place that was skateable, but didn't immediately register as a skatepark," continued Coates and Franklin.

"A series of walls hold clear skate elements, simultaneously nodding towards the future while referencing the past – specifically, the legendary acrylic skate ramps of the 1970s," they told Dezeen.

While the installation has now been dismantled, Vans and California Skateparks have donated elements of the structure to the Cosanostra Skatepark in Chelles, France.

The installation was created to announce OTW by Vans, a premium category that the brand described as "a new platform where the most elevated product expressions and brand experiences come together with the innovators of art, design, style, skate culture and entertainment."

Recently, clothing brand Supreme added a fully floating skate bowl to its Los Angeles flagship store, while the world's first multi-storey skatepark opened in Kent, England, last year.

The photography is by Atiba Jefferson unless otherwise stated and is courtesy of OTW Vans.

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French fashion house Dior has presented its Spring Summer 2024 menswear show, in which models rose from the floor of a purpose-built structure that was designed by events and production company Villa Eugénie.

The show took place at the École Militaire in Paris inside a purpose-built grey box structure that was installed on the grounds of the military college for the occasion.

Inside the purpose-built structure, which was created by Villa Eugénie, grey blanketed the interior alongside a gridded metal floor and stretches of tiered seating that flanked the walls of the space beneath a lightbox ceiling.

As the lighting dimmed, signifying the start of the show, 51 panels within the gridded floor began glowing and withdrew to reveal a trap door from which models individually rose to the interior's ground level.

In Dior's show notes, the presentation was described as a "mechanical garden" with models rising from the ground like growing "male flowers" or "homme fleurs", adorned in the brightly coloured and embellished Spring Summer 2024 collection and floral-like hats.

"A collage of influences and pop iconography takes shape in a mechanical garden of 'homme fleurs', simultaneously embracing tradition and subversion," said Dior in its show notes.

"Before we were looking with our eyes and now we look with our phones. Does it look good on film? Does it look good as an image to be posted?" said Villa Eugénie founder, Etienne Russo in an interview with System Magazine.

"We researched, we did several tests," Russo continued. "The weight, the speed, the softness, the mechanic behind the opening and closing, the lighting. All of that has been a journey of research. I don't see this as a show more of a performance."

When all models had risen from beneath the floors of the show space, each circled the perimeter of the interior before returning back to their assigned floor tile where they sunk back into the ground.

The show, which was titled From New Look to New Wave, celebrated Dior men's creative director Kim Jones' five-year anniversary at the house.

The collection referenced Jones' predecessors at the house, including the works of Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Gianfranco Ferré, Marc Bohan and John Galliano.

British milliner Stephen Jones created a series of beanies, which reference Phrygian liberty caps, that see the cockade of the liberty cap replaced with traditional Chinese velvet flower head accessories named Ronghua.

Jones' references to flora and gardens are not new in his messaging and collections at Dior. For its Spring Summer 2023 menswear show, Jones collaborated with Villa Eugénie to create a replica set of Christian Dior's childhood home and garden with 19,000 flowers.

Prior to that, Dior's Spring Summer 2022 menswear show comprised a set that included 27 oversized sculptures of cacti, mushrooms and roses organised around a wrought garden gate.

At Dior's Autumn Winter 2023 womenswear show, artist Joana Vasconcelos created a 24-metre-long installation that utilised fabrics and textiles from the collection.

The photography is by Adrien Dirand unless stated otherwise.

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At the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, Allbirds has unveiled a woolly sock-style trainer with a bioplastic sole that effectively adds zero emissions to the atmosphere over the course of its life, the shoe brand claims.

The minimal all-grey Moonshot sneaker features an upper made using wool from a regenerative farm in New Zealand, which uses sustainable land management practices to capture more carbon than it emits.

This on-farm carbon storage offset any other emissions generated over the product's lifecycle, Allbirds claims, making it the "world's first net-zero carbon shoe".

"Regenerative wool was a critical pillar of helping us reimagine how products are designed and made through the lens of carbon reduction," co-founder Tim Brown told Dezeen.

"To me, the currently untapped opportunity for naturally derived, net-zero products is the future of fashion."

Allbirds races to reduce trainers' footprint

Set to launch commercially next spring, the product follows in the footsteps of the Futurecraft.Footprint trainer, which at 2.94 kilograms CO2e was reportedly the lowest-carbon trainer ever made when Allbirds and Adidas launched it in 2021.

Back then, the team focused mainly on simplifying the construction of trainers, which have an average footprint of 13.6 kilograms CO2e, and reducing the number of separate components from 65 to just seven.

This same principle was also applied to the Moonshot, which features no laces or eyelets and integrates its insole directly into the knitted upper.

But this time, the key advance came in the form of materials – primarily the merino wool upper sourced from Lake Hawea Station, a certified net-zero farm in New Zealand.

Through regenerative practices such as replanting native trees and vegetation, as well as maintaining soil carbon through rotational grazing, the farm says it sequesters almost twice as much carbon as it emits.

However, these carbon benefits of sustainable land management are generally not considered in a material's lifecycle assessment (LCA).

"Frequently, the way that the carbon intensity of wool is looked at is just acknowledging the emissions, so completely disregarding any of the removals happening on farm," said Allbirds sustainability manager Aileen Lerch. "And we think that that is a huge missing opportunity."

That's because it prevents brands, designers and architects, who are increasingly making use of biomaterials to reduce the footprint of their projects, from reliably calculating and certifying any emissions savings.

With the Moonshot project, Allbirds hopes to offer a template for how these carbon benefits could be considered within LCAs, using Lake Hawea Station's overall carbon footprint as a basis.

From this, the Allbirds extrapolated a product-level footprint for the wool, which the company has so far failed to disclose, using its own carbon calculator.

As a result, there is a degree of uncertainty around the actual footprint of the trainer because it cannot currently be verified by a third party according to official international standards.

But Lerch argues that this is a risk worth taking to help push the discussion forward and incentivise a shift towards regenerative agriculture.

"It's about progress, not perfection," she said. "We could spend decades debating the finer points of carbon sequestration, or we can innovate today with a common sense approach."

Plastics still play a role for performance

Regenerative wool also cannot yet fully contend with the performance of synthetic fibres, meaning that to create the Moonshot upper, it had to be blended with some recycled nylon and polyester for durability and stretch.

For the midsole, Allbirds managed to amp up the bioplastic content from 18 per cent in 2021's Futurecraft.Footprint trainer to 70 per cent in the Moonshot, using a process called supercritical foaming.

This involves injecting gas into the midsole, making it more durable and lightweight while reducing the need for emissions-intensive synthetic additives.

"In the industry right now, most midsoles have no bio content or quite a minimal one," Lerch explained. "So it's really a large step change in what's possible because of this supercritical foaming process."

Stuck to the front of the sneaker is a bioplastic smiley face badge by California company Mango Materials, which is made using captured methane emissions from a wastewater treatment facility that is then digested by bacteria and turned into a biopolyester called PHA.

The shoe itself will be vacuum-packed in bioplastic polyethylene to save space and weight during transport, which Allbirds plans to conduct via electric trucks and biofuel-powered container ships.

There is no "perfect solution" for end of life

Another area that will need further development is the end of life, meaning how the shoe's packaging and its various plastic and bioplastic composite components can be responsibly disposed of given that they are notoriously hard – if not impossible – to recycle.

"We don't yet have a perfect solution of what will happen at its end of life," Lerch said. "We don't want to make a promise of: send it back, don't worry, buy your next shoe and move on."

"We acknowledge though, that the answer isn't just to keep making more products that end up in landfill or incinerated. So we're continuously looking at what those solutions can be."

In a bid to overcome challenges like this and encourage collaboration across the industry, Allbirds is open-sourcing the toolkit it used to create Moonshot and encouraging other companies to adapt, expand and improve on it.

"It is also about ushering in a new age of 'hyper-collaboration' across brands and industries to share best practice, build scale for all parts of the supply chain, to reward growers and lower costs," Brown said.

Allbirds became the first fashion brand to provide carbon labelling for all of its products in 2020.

Since then, the company has committed itself to reducing the carbon footprint of its products to below one kilogram and its overall footprint to "near zero" by 2030.

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London-based studio EBBA Architects has channelled the environmental ethos of fashion rental platform Rotaro for its pop-up boutique at department store Liberty.

The project aimed to show that beautiful and interesting spaces can be created for temporary use, while still considering the environmental impacts of materials and construction.

"We are very aware of our environmental impact and we believe design should speak to this, while also trying to make a unique experience for the visitor," EBBA founder Benjamin Allan told Dezeen.

"Rotaro is all about fashion rental, as a response to waste in the industry," he added. "Circularity is key to their ethos and we wanted to connect to this, both in the use of material and form."

Bringing definition to Rotaro's space within the wider store, EBBA has demarcated the area with a pair of substantial columns, each with an elongated, semi-circular cross-section.

"The position and shape of the columns create the sense of walking into an entirely new space within the historic context of Liberty," said Allan.

Entwining the two columns, a pair of metal rails have the dual function of creating a display area and introducing a sculptural element that further defines the space, with soaring, free-form curves.

"The two rails rotate and wrap around each of the columns, while also simultaneously responding to the opposite rail, a bit like a choreographed piece," Allan said.

Continuing the theme of duality, just two key materials have been used in the space – cork and metal.

EBBA was influenced by the work of artists Donald Judd and Carl Andre and their elevation of humble materials through detailing and construction.

"We always look to push the potential of a project, to make the most impact through the simplest of means and also address the need to be economical," Allan said.

"Essentially the design revolves around only two materials which, working together, give a sense of regularity in the layouts of the blocks, combined with the sculptural forms of the rails."

Cork was used as the primary material, cladding the two columns and creating the backdrops that zone Rotaro's area.

EBBA aimed to use a material that had an environmental quality, while using the standardisation of the blocks to set parameters for the design.

"We chose blocks of a specific dimension that could then be adapted to create both the walls and the columns themselves," Allan said.

"The cork is a natural material that has an inherent warmth and depth, while also being incredibly versatile and easily recycled," he added.

Brushed stainless steel was used for the metalwork, with each rail comprised of a single piece of metal that was bent and sculpted to wrap around the columns.

This rail's curving form relates to the idea of circularity in Rotaro's business model, while also bringing an adaptability to the space by allowing the garments to be shown in a variety of ways.

"The primary purpose is to display the continuously updated collection while also adding a sculptural aspect that helps to create a sense of space," said Allan.

Within the ornately-detailed Liberty store, the project offers a bold, contemporary response to the interior, while finding common ground with the wider building.

"The tones and textures in the warmth of the cork, tie in with the timber and natural colours of Liberty's interior spaces," Allan said. "Detailing and decoration in the original columns relate to nature and vegetation, which also tie into the use of cork and its qualities."

Because the Liberty building has Grade II listed status, no fixings were allowed into the building fabric.

"The benefit of the lightweight cork material meant we could also adapt the Rotaro space with minimal impact on the wider building," he added.

To create a plinth that provides a flat surface for displaying objects, EBBA used the same semi-circular form of the columns, but flipped onto its side.

This element has been given an ultramarine blue coating to add a sense of playfulness and catch the attention of visitors, using one of Rotaro's key colours to connect with the brand's identity.

While the space has been designed as a pop-up, EBBA worked – through the quality of the materials and the construction of the walls and blocks – to give it a sense of permanence.

"All of our projects aim to achieve a quality of permanence through the use of natural materials and the detailing of the construction," Allan said.

"We believe that this level of quality helps to create a design that feels purposeful, even for temporary uses."

Other recent projects by EBBA Architects include a shop for Cubitts in an old pie-and-mash restaurant and a house extension with brutalist-style materials.

The photography is by James Retief

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Fashion brand Loewe has opened a store in Osaka that, for the first time, is specifically dedicated to the repair and preservation of its leather goods.

The opening of Loewe ReCraft continues the "obsessive focus" that the brand has had on leather since 1846, when it initially launched as a leather-making collective.

The store is set inside luxury department store Hankyu Umeda, and – thanks to the presence of an in-house artisan – is able to offer maintenance services ranging from re-painting and stitching to the replacement of handles and eyelets.

"The launch [of the store] builds on Loewe's ongoing commitment to the longevity of its handcrafted bags," explained the brand. "It's about the joy of craft beyond the new; it's a commitment to breathing fresh life into long-cherished possessions."

The store's open facade allows for uninterrupted sightlines through to the interior, which has been decked out in natural tones and materials.

Dotted across the recycled-wood floor is a trio of chunky consultation islands, each clad with glossy emerald-green tiles sourced from Spain.

The longest of the three islands has a thickset countertop made from limestone and wood.

It features a series of inbuilt flat trays from which customers can select straps, charms or studs to customise their items. Monogramming services are also available.

A window in a tile-covered wall looks through to a small repair room that houses a sewing machine, various cutting tools, swatches of leather, and a rainbow of different threads.

Another tiled wall at the rear of the Loewe ReCraft store showcases bags crafted from leather left over from Loewe's past collections, which customers can purchase.

Limited editions of the brand's signature Basket bag are also available to buy, updated with patches and pockets made out of surplus leather.

As well as leather items, Loewe also makes clothing, accessories and pieces for the home.

Earlier this year the brand released a pair of trainers covered in shaggy green raffia, emulating the appearance of grass. It also collaborated with French metal artist Elie Hirsch to produce a series of bulbous pewter and copper jackets.

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The latest edition of our Dezeen Debate newsletter features a microscopic Louis Vuitton handbag designed by art collective MSCHF. Subscribe to Dezeen Debate now.

American art collective MSCHF has revealed a microscopic Louis Vuitton handbag made from neon-green photopolymer resin.

The bag, which was created using 3D printing, is 658 micrometres high and 700 micrometres long.

Commenters had mixed opinions. One thought the design was "ironic" and a "perfect expression of the usefulness of overpriced luxury items", whilst another argued that the "toxicity of polymer resin should be the commentary".

Other stories in this week's newsletter that fired up the comments section included a curved skyscraper in Canada by Kengo Kuma, a courtyard home in India designed by Rain Studio and the death of RIBA Royal Gold Medal-winning architect Michael Hopkins.

Dezeen Debate

Dezeen Debate is sent every Thursday and features a selection of the best reader comments and most talked-about stories. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Debate or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to our other newsletters; Dezeen Agenda is sent every Tuesday containing a selection of the most important news highlights from the week, Dezeen Daily is our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours and Dezeen In Depth is sent on the last Friday of every month and delves deeper into the major stories shaping architecture and design.

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Dutch studio AMO created an aluminium-clad space with slime falling from the ceiling to form liquid walls for fashion house Prada's Spring Summer 2024 menswear show.

Located in the Deposito space at the brand's Rem Koolhaas-designed Fondazione Prada art centre in Milan, AMO clad the walls, floor and suspended ceiling in aluminium to create a cage-like structure for the show.

Within this industrial space, models walked between liquid walls formed by 3,000 kilos of slime that dripped down from the ceiling and formed green puddles on the floor.

A ring of industrial lamps placed around the ceiling lit up the catwalk, adding to its clinical feel.

By creating ever-shifting slime "walls", AMO's design aimed to change the perception of the industrial space, adding an organic aspect that would also affect how the audience saw and interacted with the models.

Both the aluminium structure used for the walls, ceiling and floor and the slime will eventually be sent back to their suppliers to be recycled.

The design of the showspace nodded to that of the collection itself, called Fluid Form, which Prada described as "an examination of fluid architecture, around the human body".

"The concept of fluidity framing the human form again expands, represented through the showspace in the Deposito of the Fondazione Prada," Prada said. "Abstract walls are evoked through fluid interruptions, forming an ever-shifting enfilade through which the models process."

The Fluid Form collection, designed by Prada founder Miuccia Prada and the brand's co-creative director Raf Simons, was designed to have a fluidity that would differ from traditionally rigid tailoring.

"The ultimate aim is a constant awareness of the body within, and its liberation," Prada said.

This fluidity in the design was exemplified by soft, squishy leather bags, looser interpretations of traditionally structured shirts, decorative pockets and applications of corsages and fringes.

"These clothes are ultimately reflective of our natural state – the dynamic movement and constant transformation inherent to humanity," the brand added.

AMO, which is the research and creative studio of Dutch architecture firm OMA, has created numerous show designs for Prada in the Fondazione Prada space.

For the fashion brand's Autumn Winter 2023 menswear show it added a moving ceiling and art deco chandeliers, while last summer's menswear show featured an oversized paper house.

The photography is courtesy of Prada.

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