Celebrated British designer, Stella McCartney, has teamed up with biotechnology company Bolt Threads. Founded in 2010 and based in San Francisco, the sustainability startup is dedicated to creating the next generation of advanced materials. This is Bolt’s first collaborative product. Together with Stella McCartney they have created a one-of-a-kind custom dress made entirely of Bolt Microsilk™.
Pioneering New Sustainability
The collaboration stresses the importance of material and resource choices, because of how they can impact the environment. On pioneering new sustainable techniques in fashion with Stella McCartney, the Bolt Fabrics shared: “We’re excited by the risk. We’re excited by thinking outside the box. We think that’s modern. And I think the fashion industry is supposed to be modern, and I find it so extraordinary old fashioned at times that I can’t really get my head around it. The fact that we’re even having this conversation, it seems medieval to me.”
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Their partnership began when Bold Threads received an email from the Stella McCartney team inquiring about their materials. This soon led to Stella McCartney herself coming to the Bolt Threads labs and checking out their technology with CEO Dan Widmaier. Recognising the potential of Bolt Threads’ technology Stella said, “This is something that I’ve been personally on a journey to find for much of my career and I just feel like there is finally a new opportunity to bring so many industries together and for them to all work as one for a better planet. It is a truly modern and mindful approach to fashion.”
The dress that they are working on will be made with The Bolt Microsilk™ yarn. As you might be aware, spiders produce silk fibers with remarkable properties including high tensile strength, elasticity, durability and softness. The Bolt Thread’s has developed a technology that can replicate this amazing process sustainably on a large scale.
Their first piece will be a custom knitted one-of-a-kind, gold dress. It is a modern interpretation of the classic shift dress and is made entirely of Bolt Thread’s signature protein-based yarn. This is not Bolt Thread’s first item, in March 2017 they created a knit necktie made of its 100% Boltspun spider silk.
Hoping to pave the way for a future of environmentally friendly luxury fabric innovation, this is a partnership that promises to reveal new sustainability initiatives throughout the remainder of 2017 and beyond.
Founding editor-in-chief of FashNerd.com, Muchaneta is currently one of the leading influencers writing about the merger of fashion with technology and wearable technology. She has also given talks at Premiere Vision, Munich Fabric Start and Pure London, to name a few. Besides working as a fashion innovation consultant for various fashion companies like LVMH Atelier, Muchaneta has also contributed to Vogue Business, is a senior contributor at The Interline and an associate lecturer at London College of Fashion, UAL.