Nature+Tech=Sustainable Fashion

Robin Raskin closed the session with Amanda Parkes, chief innovation officer at PANGAIA, a fashion brand which invents and produces natural and sustainable textiles from materials like seaweed and mushrooms.  Fashion, she argued, is one of the most exploitative and expensive industries, often disregarding human rights, environmental rights, and sustainable manufacturing. Most fashion textiles have components that are literally plastic. Parkes pointed to the lack of innovation in the textile industry in recent decades, “we’re well overdue for some real concentrated scientific efforts there and that’s what we’re taking on.”