US company TômTex bio-based clothing debuts at New York Fashion Week
Bio-based materials developer TômTex has teamed up with New York fashion designer Peter Do to create two looks for his Spring/Summer 2023 collection at New York Fashion Week. TômTex debuted on Peter Do's Spring/Summer 2023 runway, both comprised of glossy wide-leg pants and crew-neck vests, one in camel tones and the other in black finishes.
The garments are made from TômTex's "new non-woven biofibre", a 100% biodegradable material derived from shrimp and mushroom food waste that has the look and feel of leather. The vest is embossed with a subtle cross-hatched pattern reminiscent of polyethylene-coated duct tape, while the pants remain smooth but feature stitched paneling details.
The material replacement for TômTex is made from chitosan, a derivative of a biopolymer, a polymer produced from natural sources - chitin. The company works with Vietnamese suppliers to collect shell and mushroom waste from which to extract chitosan biopolymers.
The collaboration stems from Uyen Tran, founder of TômTex, who says that since Tran first developed the bio-based material and founded TômTex in 2020, the brand has made huge improvements to the material's properties and composition to increase its strength and aesthetics.
She said: "Last year we have made significant progress in improving the mechanical properties, aesthetic properties and marketability of our materials, for example by cleverly adjusting our material formulation we have been able to increase its absolute breaking strength without adding any plastic. Three times more, in fact, nothing comes from fossil sources, 100% bio-based". Likewise, they have changed processes and formulations to improve the hand of the material, adding softness and silkiness, and even creating a suede-like texture.
