Biomatters explores how the role of design could change in the textile and apparel industry if synthetic biology is established as a new technology and production method. The field of synthetic biology is an industry developing methods for ‘reprogramming’ cells to produce bespoke materials, medicines and biofuels. There is much rhetoric around designable biology as a world changing and world saving sustainable technology, but there are also a number of questions that surround its claims and ambition that need to be answered (Ginsberg, 2014). Biotech is a fast moving industry that needs to be questioned and scrutinized; design can play a key role here. I feel there is further need to review how design practice will change in my industry, if we start working with life as raw material, machine and operating system (Ginsberg, 2014).

This research project explores this emerging industry from the perspective of fashion and textile application in order to seek sustainable solutions, new materials and circular models, to tackle key industry issues. It investigates whether reprogrammed microbes could become our ‘factories of the future’ (Lee, 2005) fostering a new design paradigm based on cultivation, growth and living cells. What it will mean if we begin to ‘biofacture’ (Collet, 2017) materials and apparel. And what the shift from hand-made and man-made to ‘grow-made’ (Collet, 2017) will mean for design practice within my industry.