Expanding Ideas

The concept of biomemicry opens up a world of ideas for future products. The focus is now on creating concepts/ideas for future products. There is only one way to ensure a sustainable future and that is to take action. Benyus provides great IE information to use your imagination and expand on.

Two more principles of IE that Jane Benyus addressed that I found important for my concept were "Gather and use energy efficiently" and "Optimizing Rather than maximizing." Gathering and using energy efficiently can be done by using current sunlight as renewable energy. In the book Textile futures: Fashion, design, and technology, Quinn explains how our products today mimic nature and how we use nature today. Peacocks feathers are not actually colorful, they look that way because of the material and how the sunlight reflects. Morphotex is a colorful textile made without dyes or pigments. It gains color by the reflection of light and the angle that the light hits. I think creating a clothing line that uses only materials like morphotex would be ideal because you aren't using the energy or chemicals that it requires to dye clothing. Using nature is one of the best ways to save on energy and materials.

"Optimizing rather than maximizing", discusses how our world today focuses of making products as fast as possible and getting them to the consumer as fast as possible. This creates no diversity and 85% of manufactured products quickly become waste so there has to be a better way to do this. In the book Sustainable Fashion & Textiles: Design Journey, Fletcher talks about the benefits of producing locally. Producing locally is a much slower process but it allows for diversity. Also it provides environmental benefits by reducing emission form transportation,  encouraging social engagement and creating diversity. I think selling the line of clothing made from materials like morphotex at these local stores would be an efficient idea.  This will allow for one-of-a-kind products that consumers are striving for these days.