H&M announced this week that it will be investing in clothes made out of poop. (Yes, you read that right.)
In an effort to up its eco-friendly game and become 100 per cent sustainable by 2040, H&M announced that it plans to only use recycled materials and renewable resources — and yes, that means cow manure.
Apparently cow poop can be turned into a soft, sturdy material by extracting cellulose found in dried dung. Natural liquid plastic can also be made from wet manure by extracting acids from it to create cellulose acetate, Dezeen reports.
While many have dubbed this new material “poop fabric,” inventor Jalila Essaidi is calling it Mestic.
The Netherlands designer originally came up with the idea to “turn manure into haute couture” after she realized there was a growing surplus of manure globally.
“This is not the first time that scientists are looking for ways to solve the manure problem,” she told Dezeen last year. “But it is the first time that manure is being considered as a valuable resource.”
Essaidi’s unique idea was picked up by the Swedish retailer after it was entered into H&M Foundation’s second annual Global Change Awards. These awards are given to scientists who come up with big, innovative ideas in fashion. This year, Essaidi was one of five winners.
Besides manure couture, other winning ideas included grape leather, which uses waste materials from winemaking to make fake leather, and solar textiles, which manufactures nylon using sustainable resources such as water, plant waste and solar energy.
Speaking about H&M’s plans to go green and their new quirky ideas, CEO Karl-Johan Persson told Vogue: “We want to get there so it means something. But it also means pushing the ambition and being visionary, taking the lead in these topics. We want to see yearly improvements, so that it’s not just, ‘let’s set the goal of 2040 and see what happens.’”
Thanks to sustainability, the future of fashion is shaping up to be an interesting one.
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