Suzanne Lee: Grow your own clothes 

Kombucha is amazing. I saw another video, where the dried scoby was painted with a mix of mineral oil and wax, and that made it pretty water proof. Other things you can do with extra scobies from making kombucha - you can eat them, make jerky, mash them up and add to garden soil for beneficial bacteria. I just tried that out last summer on a pot of zinnias, and they absolutely exploded with blooms.

"imagine growing something consumable", I can't even begin to imagine

Hemp absorbs more CO2 than trees and can be used in making plastics, textiles, improved concrete and a fiberglass material. Much better!

That jacket or whatever that she is wearing looks like the skin suit from silence of the lambs.

It was very interesting talk. I think the method developed by Suzanne Lee has great potential .This’s a great way to produce ‘leather’ clothes without cruelty and killing animals. Additionally these clothes don’t contain chemicals that may be dangerous to our health. In my opinion it’s extremely important to take care of the environment and this method of production seems to be harmless. I just can't believe that kombucha has so many uses! Maybe it doesn’t look good but you can drink it and It is very healthy for our body because kombucha is rich in vitamins and minerals.

I'd say hemp is far better. It's super easy to grow and harvest. Also hemp wood, used to make houses, is fire resistant.

Shopping bags.

At first I thought it was gross, but then I realized that skinning animals as one of the methods to acquire materials for clothing is ACTUALLY disgusting. I mean, the clothing that is made from this revolutionary process only LOOKS like skin - but as she showed, it can always be dyed. That indigo garment looks just like a jean jacket! I'd wear that.

Suzannes way of thinking is what makes her and her designs so attractive and inspirational as a real innovative designer. Any minor point about wearability she will be able to solve in the near future, no doubt. Just brilliant!

Some sort of glue, like Elmer's, mixed in with her kombucha-based material might work, or rubber tree rubber. You know I find milkweed sap fascinating, there has to be a more varied use for it, besides wart remover.

What about the odor? Does it have a smell? Does it absorb much sweat? I would think this is a bigger drawback than how it behaves in the rain since I can choose to stand in the rain or not. I can't choose not to sweat. I am impressed by the translucency and the stains. I really like the way it looks. When this talk first started I had pretty much figured this would be some nutty, hippie thing -- and it is, a bit, but it looks really interesting. If only the hygrophilous nature could be eliminated. I feel like if I went out on a humid day with a jacket made of this stuff that I'd come back to find it growing into my skin and I'd be unable to remove it. If it's cellulose then can't it be converted to an acetate or treated the same way rayon is made? I believe the process to produce rayon is not very difficult or complex. Then it should be water resistant.

It can be hydrophobic through plant wax infusion.

But you still have to grow the tea and sugar first, and they take a lot of time, water and energy to grow.

I’m growing this right now! Experimentation for fashion is so exciting!

...you can't wash it.

I wish that she would have shown the rigidity of the material. It looked a bit stiff.

Alternatives to black tea? Perhaps other components high in tannic acid? Acorns? Coffee? Need something cheaper for scaling up... Any recommendations?

The thought emporium accidentally made water proof kombucha when trying to make it like leather lol

As someone already commented. Great plastic bag replacement. If it rips when you get home, who cares. Just like today's paper bags.

If she has a problem with waterproofing, she could just use oil. Maybe not synthetic oil though; it would defeat the purpose of this project.\

i can change the colour without chemicals, i use iron oxidation. is iron off the periodic table now lol

Just completely dry it out and say OK and wax and oil then you’ll have a long lasting water resistancet substance

It really isn't, most of our resources are currently exhaustible with a majority of our plastics being derived from petroleum oil and materials being taken from non-renewable sources. Having found a way to have virtually no environmental impact whilst forming a material that is a static process and using readily available materials is quite an achievement. Although it's in it's early stages sustainability is key for the continuation of our current standard of living.

this can be used as alternative to single use decorative items ,it has grt scope in indian wedding decorations

well her point is that there is a technique that has the potential to use sugar and microbes to produce cellulose fabric. This technique needs to be perfected. microbes can be altered to work on different substrates like sugar alcohols or other raw materials (that are waste), also variation is microbes can produce different fabrics. Further study will lead to a more sophisticated process and product. This is not the final product but a prototype .....phew...have to spell out everything....

@viralistique by feeding she meant its absorbing her sweat like a cloth would. only this material kinda self destructs by bio-degrading itself once it absorbs it. its not technicly alive.

That is freaking incredible! Once she works out how to make it water resistant (at least so that it doesn't fall apart in water) it'll be even better. I wonder how much it costs to make something - would much money be lost in the process of clothing the homeless and so on?

it would leave rather interesting pit stains

Couldn't you waterproof it with some oil?

This is really cool, I would think about using this type of material for building or trying to replace plastic which is just continuing to be piled on land fills. It sucks it isn't water proof, maybe we will find a micro organism that makes a more sturdy material. : )

grow our own money?

1. Can one place loose-weave Spectra layers on top of the culture to "incorporate" fabric into the "leather"? OR: 2. Do the same during the part where you place strips on a form? 3. Once dried, can you silicone waterproof it with spray?

Bags would be great for the future, instead of paper or plastic, and maybe containers or boxes where you sell your products in. Great step towards the future!

The whole talk was not amazing until she got to the end and talked about the possibilities of what we could grow. I don't know why I didn't think about it but that just peaked my interest and got me thinking a lot. Brilliant stuff!

@Toxicflu not necessarily useless - as she says, indoor materials might be a starting place. Besides, with the right coating, it could be made more useful.

I really like the idea of making your own clothes using kombucha fermentation process, its very organic

Great concept. Seems silly though. And she really needs to work on her terminology. "We can even begin to imagine growing consumables"? Yeah...We should be able to imagine it. We've been doing it since...forever!

Hi Suzanne , I am from Brazil. How is your research with Kombucha leather currently going?

great idea but hemp fiber is just as good if not better ,and it can be waterproof.

I intend to use kiddie pools to grow them. The diameter of a large kiddie pool is about the size of a pelt from a beastly animal, 90 cm (35 inches).

@invent4or Why is this an either/or solution? There are pros and cons to each--the main pro of this technology is that it seems the cellulose can grow almost anywhere, including in low light or cooler environments not suitable for hemp. Hemp has its own advantages as well. Both materials can exist as effective solutions to different problems.

i think a better use of the cellulose is a paper or building material replacement. rather than cutting down huge numbers of trees, we can have bacteria construct fibers for us effectively and organically. but of course fermentations creates carbon dioxide and ethanol...

Tea, sugar, fermentation.. it's Kombucha isn't it? Quite popular actually as a "tea mushroom". I'm looking at one right now at my table, turning a bottle of oversugered tea into a "healthy potion". It's really hard to believe, that she's wearing one of these. It smells a little when it "works" and it surely get's slimy again when it soaks the sweat. It's however totaly awesome, she gave it a shot as a material. Hope for update about making it hydrophobic. Good luck Suzanne!!

@MarkArandjus They are jealous. Ted always has the most amazing people who are truly passionate about their careers. Deep inside the haters of TED wish they had followed their own passions too.

At 4:07 she says "So what I want to do is say to a future bug..." which makes it clear that she is in the beginning stages of what could be a fabric of the future. It's a shame that the top comment is so close-minded about it.

Ok, so how do you make this waterproof? It's great that it is organic but is there something you could apply to it (perhaps even chemical) that would sustain it for a period of time with minimal environmental damage. As I see it, it is still better than slaughtering animals.

I want TED in HD :(

@Toxicflu the current material is but with genetically engineering the microbes to form fibers with specific properties, just as what she said, it would become a good alternative to the common textile materials

the point of the talk is to show it is *possible* not that she has a perfect technique thats up for manufacturing on mass scale...... it shows that is its so simple and versatile and yet its just the beginning where you are limited by your imagination....

Have you tried actually tanning it with milk of lime and vegetable tannins? That and oiling it with a mix of pitch, vegetable gum, and oil mightmake it more durable and waterproof.

Use frequencies to grow the bacteria along with the procedures it takes to make it, because frequency makes everything the way it is.

У меня давно такое чудо в банке растет, только я его пью, делаю уксус вымораживанием, и тоже давно задумывался о выращивании домов, но много надо сахара. Пока нет времени и денег этим заниматься. А вообще идея очень перспективна и сравнительно дешева. Можно будет попробовать хотя бы вырастить перчатки. Правда я не до конца понял как он себя ведет при повторном намокании (например при стирке). Но можно чем то попробовать стабилизировать. А еще надо как то подумать что бы он рос заданной формы. Частично мне это удалось. Например положить в маленькую баночку - он будет круглый и маленький, а в большую квадратную - большой и квадратный. Можно даже сразу выращивать так сказать с естественными отверстиям. У меня так в одной банке торчала трубочка и я через ней пил квас. Интересно что гриб оброс вокруг трубочки. Т.е. двумерную структуру можно придать осталось подумать как ему придать трехмерную структуру, и как сушить что бы он не коробился. Хотя если сушить под прессом не должен. В общем перспектив у данной технологии масса. Так что наши депутаты могут уже сейчас запретить чайный гриб как и другие биотехнологии. Например как запретили ГМО. Хотя возможно это и не обязательно, т.к. такое до нас не дойдет. Даже видео не кто не удосужился перевести, зато разный треп Илона Маска постоянно переводят. А ведь инфа про биотехнологии была бы на много полезнее. Это могут делать в дома все кто захочет, а Маск и др. трепается о полетах на Марс... В то время как у нас тут скоро будет пустыня, а ведь могли бы взять на вооружение подобные технологии, в т.ч. ГМО и давно бы уже выращивали дома как муравьи. Но куда обезьянам до муравьев, с нашими то мозгами, нам только друг друга дурить да обворовывать... А вот заниматься биотехнологиями, менять мир вокруг себя, нет, пусть это делают микробы, человек разумный не достаточно разумный для того что бы себе позволить такое.

See how she didn't get a standing ovation? That's because she didn't deserve one.

I think there's more important to be done..and I feel that this might mimic leather someday if process is improving...it's good for cruelty free things...

Is it alkali-soluble? i.e. Can you make it into rayon? Guess the xanthation reagents are a bit undesirable... How much better/worse is a cane sugar based bioreformation process from just growing cotton? Water usage has to be similar and cotton processing is pretty well optimised. Not that I am fundamentally against biosynthesis of textiles in vats, but if your starting material is cane sugar you still need fields of photosynthesizing machines to capture your energy and carbon.

@Toxicflu well, this is only the beginning. most of what we use for fabrics is un-sustainable and it's production is toxic so don't just douse everything in your negativity.

Not bad for self made clothes. I can see this improving if the idea gets picked up by corporations with labs and stuff.

@Zormac and YOU deserve a standing-ovation because you have contributed exactly what?

What about brazing the material with a torch? Much like the top of a creme brulee it would create texture and give it a more leathery color.

Could this be used in agriculture to maintain water in ground in dry areas with low annual rainfall? Absorb the moisture up in the rainy months and allow for a controlled irrigation. That stuff is awesome!

Cool! She does a good job of explaining all of this, very easy to follow, bravo.

The supra-absorbancy, does it mean that the clothes go on absorbing everything, every chemicals, or at least every hydrophilous chemicals. Not safe. The part of the video I don't like is about OGM kombucha making the 3D cloths, hydrophobic cloths, etc. I don't know if she intended OGM, but it seems. What's the advantage to have non chemical dyes and OGM kombucha?

@justicetrooper Sry I said that wrong I didnt mean this could save the nature from everything that people have ever done.Just meant it could save SOME of it,like waters from the toxic chemicals that come from fabric-dyeing cotton factories etc.This material can be coloured with such a little amount of colour, or in fact with nature-dyeing technigues.Of course they'd still need to develop this product,not to break in the water etc,but I think this could be an ecological option to make fashion.:)

thats all very well, however the real problem within the textile industry is that it still ignores, at least at a main stream level, hemp and bamboo.

@595o Yes, completely unnecessarily. I doubt a single person at the TED Conference misunderstood her.

will we 3D print out the engine block and grow the shell and tires (of a car)? maybe in about 10 years, of course by then the car will come with enough intelligence to drive itself and run errands for us...

acetic acid, commonly found in vinegar

This is an amazing idea for conceptual fashion.

There are currently products it could be treated with to make it hydrophobic. That already exists. I'm not sure why she doesn't know this. At that point, it would be a great material possibly for shoes. Also, it would make a unique paper. Imagine business cards you could grow, cut out and then print up. Hmm.

@Toxicflu I know useless. Bamboo, Coconut husk and Hemp are much more productive and useful not to mention they are allready in use. This was just let her kamboocha ferment too much when she came up with this idea.

Add bee wax and coconut oil let it get absorbed and there you go water resistant

Brilliant. A step in the right direction. Just a few more kinks to solve. If only the industries to make the sugar and acetic acid were also enviro friendly. I would have thought natural waxes does the waterproof thing.

I think I solved her water proofing issue after thinking on this a bit. I might try it out soon.

I like the idea of using biology to produce materials and other items (such as batteries), but I don't really subscribe to this view that the use of natural, organic ingredients is somehow better than the use of synthetic ones. If this idea is to be viable on a large scale, they surely wouldn't use tea of the sort that you can buy in a supermarket; they'd probably synthesise or extract the active compounds from something cheaper, but then it wouldn't appeal to hippies so much.

Do you need tea if you aren't going to drink it? Can SCOBY grow on just sugar water?

How crazy is this. Was just thinking about this today and I was looking at my scoby.

@supercorm sugar cane is the only source of sugar ? she mentioned using our food waste to feed the culture

I think the concept is nice, but the current result, no so much. However, by doing this talk, the designer/experimenter brings in more brains to think about this. It's probably worth pursuing, especially if people could grow their own by themselves, for themselves.

A better intro would have been nice, and THEN explain how it works. Pop Sci also talked about people working to create growable homes, basically a very fast growing tree that you cut away from as desired. Like she said though, this clothing isn't a replacement, but could be used for more fashion styles.

Or rubber.

Can you get a yeast infection from wearing those tight pants?

@1989Gez1989 You're getting unnecessarily caught up in semantics. Of course she meant industrial chemicals.

good!

I find it rather annoying that she says she didn't want to use "chemicals" to dye the clothes. Apart from that, cool science.

Wasn't there a liquid recently that you could spray onto surfaces and it would be water repellant? :P

Pointless if it breaks down in water. I love the idea and potential though

I like it, but it shows the cloths that are see-through, it would be easier to see if it's OK worn by human models. She wears her Kombucha vest, but I'd like to see the pants, the dresses, etc...

I thought it said "Grow your own dish" for a moment and that doesn't seem like a bad idea with this thing. You grow your own dish, put in some soup, let it absorb the soup and eat the dish voila! Ofc the dish would have to be edible material hmm

That was really neat, very fun and interesting concept!

@Toxicflu It is useless now, just like the ancient clothing were, but it is a start of a new process that may succeed.

It's always amusing to see some users try to bring a TED video down and make themselves feel better, what assholes, I bet they even check back for thumbsup. Pretty much every video presenting something new has broader implications than just what's presented, don't be so fast to dismiss something, open your mind people.

Amazing, how far are these developments progressing in this time of age in 2017?..

@Toxicflu How do you know it bio-degrades? looks to me it was already washed and still in good shape?

Kombucha is really easy to brew also.

@thelowmax Hemp that scratchy stuff worse than linen and only used for making ropes and sealing water/heating tubes?

I know a group of students who research exactly the same thing. Who knows, we can learn from each other.

@Individualism101 I guess you're saying you missed the message? It isn't so important that clothes can be made from biological cultures; it may be more important that people think outside of the box for solutions to existing problems. Never know what might shake up our world. Many discoveries were made while curious minds were looking for solutions to a completely different problems.

"growth bath" AKA "tub"

Growing a car? She went a bit over the top there, didn't she?!

@GrudgyDiablo It decomposes in water. And it's like, brown. I think I'd notice.