Material World is a weekly roundup of innovations and ideas that are reshaping the materials sector. It covers the latest developments in how fashion is designed, engineered, and scaled—from emerging biomaterials and next-generation leathers to engineered fibers and sustainable alternatives.

Balenciaga

Balenciaga used AMSilk’s silk protein-based biomaterials in its latest haute couture collection, the first by creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli.

The Kering-owned brand fashioned an evening gown out of an AMSilk-blend fabric. Inspired by spider silk, AMSilk uses fermentation to create silk proteins that are then turned into filaments.

“Seeing our material feature so prominently as part of the Balenciaga couture collection is a meaningful milestone for AMSilk,” said Ulrich Scherbel, chief operating officer premium filaments at AMSilk. “Haute couture has always been defined by exceptional craftsmanship and extraordinary materials. For us, this latest application represents an important validation of our technology and demonstrates the growing potential of biotechnology-enabled materials in luxury fashion.”

Balenciaga previously used AMSilk in its Spring 2026 collection, marking the first time the fibers were used in a commercially available line.

Hyosung

South Korea-based synthetic fiber manufacturer Hyosung is bringing its personal hygiene spandex production to Brazil.

Hyosung’s solutions for the personal hygiene market cover use cases such as diapers. Currently, this spandex is produced in South Korea, China, India and Turkey, and adding Brazil will provide a new Western Hemisphere sourcing option for these stretch fibers. This South American location gives brands in the Americas access to shorter lead times, easier collaboration and possible financial savings tied to transportation and duties.

The existing Brazil plant will be expanded to add hygiene spandex, with production slated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2027. The hygiene spandex production capacity is expected to be 3,000 tons each year.

“The expansion of our Brazil facility marks another important milestone in building a global manufacturing network for our personal hygiene spandex business,” said Scott Blackadar, global leader, personal hygiene at Hyosung TNC. “By adding production in the Americas, we’re bringing manufacturing closer to our customers, enabling faster response times, greater supply chain resilience and stronger collaboration to support innovation and meet the growing demand for high-quality personal hygiene products worldwide.”

Carbios

Biotechnology firm Carbios’ plant in Longlaville, France will be starting production later than originally expected as it finalizes its financing for what it estimates will be a 230-million-euro construction project.

Carbios had initially planned to finalize financing by Sept. 30 and begin production at the plant in the first half of 2028. In a statement on Aug. 3, the company noted that it has made progress in securing financing for the plant, including banking partners receiving approval from credit committees, but it will not reach the Sept. 30 close date. It stated, “Given the highly innovative and first-of-its-kind nature of the Longlaville project, which involves multiple stakeholders, some parties continue to conduct their due diligence work.”

Among the financing the Longlaville plant has received is 42.5 million euros in public funding, along with bank-issued debt financing and equity investments.    

The company will provide the next update when it reports results on Sept. 24. “Carbios remains fully committed and confident in its ability to secure the conditions necessary to finalize the financing of the Longlaville plant,” it said.

Melon leather

Korean accessories brand HLK and Chilgok Agricultural Technology Center are turning local agricultural waste into vegan leather. Noticing the tens of tons of melons left behind after harvest since they are not deemed retail-worthy, in 2024 the partners began work on transforming these less-than-perfect melons into bags.

It took three years to develop what the parties are currently calling Chilgok chamoe leather, which is covered in a coating made from chamoe waste and biomass as opposed to conventional polyurethane. Before getting the quality right, the development hit bumps such as colors that changed and smells that remained on the bag.

As HLK’s founder Harlie Kim noted in a post on her website, this is similar to what Italy has done with winemaking byproducts: grape seeds and skin. “From what we throw away to what we carry every day, this is a material story that began in our region,” she wrote. “When a single melon isn’t thrown away, it becomes a small piece of luck—for the farmer, for the earth and for you who carries it.”

Beer byproducts

A research project out of the Universidade da Coruña’s Centro de Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información e as Comunicacións (CITIC) is exploring how byproducts from brewing could be used in textiles. Once the key ingredient in beer, hops, is used in brewing, the plant’s stems and leaves are left over. The plan is to uncover how the plant’s fibers could possibly be used, as well as how dyes might be created out of composted brewing waste.   

The research, titled “Circular Innovation: Hop-Derived Fibers and Eco-Dyes for Sustainable Téxtiles/Téxtís,” is backed by the MIT-Spain Inditex Circularity Seed Fund, a partnership between the Spanish retail group and MIT. The participating research team comes from both CITIC and MIT. Furthering the business-meets-academia partnership, Cosecha de Galicia—a subsidiary of brewing group Hijos de Riviera that is focused on hop cultivation—will provide access to raw materials.

Following the development and testing of experimental prototypes, Inditex will support industrial evaluation of the potential of two new materials.

MIT

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a stretch yarn from polyethylene that is able to be melted down and recycled.

Spandex has been tricky to recycle because the polyurethane spandex fiber is wrapped with either polyester or nylon to create yarn. Because it is not a single type of plastic, it would require chemical processes to separate the fiber types.

In 2021, MIT’s engineers took polyethylene—a material used widely in water bottles and plastic bags, but not typically incorporated into textiles—and were able to spin yarn and make garments out of it. The more recent study took this material and turned it into a spandex alternative, developing both a stretchy core and a separate outer yarn to encase it out of polyethylene. Resin pellets were melted and extruded to created thin fibers, before they were spun together into the yarn. The resins used were different so that they would yield different properties, but because the polymer family is the same, the resulting yarn is recyclable. In a test, the researchers melted and respun the fibers 10 times, and the resulting yarns retained the same strength as the original. The team sees this solution as commercially scalable.

“Eighty percent of textiles on the U.S. market currently contain some amount of spandex, which makes them nonrecyclable,” said Svetlana Boriskina, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “There’s no widely adopted technology now that recycles textiles into textiles. With our new yarn, we hope to change that.”

Fungal fashion

Fungi are already being used for materials like faux leather, but a research team led by Dr. Zhong Chao from the State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has leveraged mycelium’s biology to engineer a fungal-based “living textile.”

The researchers cultivated Cordyceps militaris spores in controlled conditions that created pellets. They then used a low energy process to dry the pellets within molds, and they bonded together and took on the mold shape. The team added glycerol to the resulting film to limit brittleness, making it bendable.

Because the mycelium is still active, it opens the door for manipulation. Researchers created variants of the pigment-producing Saccharomyces cerevisiae in pale blue, red, orange and deep purple, and then cocultured it with the C. militaris. They were also able to create patterns and give the surface of the film self-cleaning properties by applying nutrients, creating aerial hyphae, or vertical growths. Additionally, aerial hyphae from Aspergillus niger added UV protection.

Researchers made a prototype dress out of different modules of the textiles, giving the dress’ collar, body and hem varied properties such as patterning, coloring and self-cleaning. The team also tested the prototype dress and found the materials almost fully degrade within 41 days.  

The researchers noted some of the beneficial elements of the films may also present “bottlenecks” that need to be worked around for use in textiles, including durability and the materials’ reactivity to humidity and temperature changes. They also pointed to the need for studies on breathability and wearer comfort, along with practical concerns like washability and abrasion resistance.

Sorona x WGSN

Covation Biomaterials’ partially plant-based polymer Sorona and trend forecaster WGSN have teamed up to identify three material trends that will drive textile development through 2027.

First is “New Nature,” a concept centered on a new way of looking at natural materials, encompassing bio-based and circular options. Sorona pointed to Google Trends data showing that searches for “natural fibers” are up, with a 61 percent rise in “wool base layer” and a 21 percent lift in “cotton leggings” inquiries year-over-year. Additionally, Market Data Forecast projects that biomaterials will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.5 percent through 2029, reaching $285.3 billion by that year.

“Climate Flex” speaks to the need for performance wear and temperature-regulating attire to manage a changing climate.

Rounding out the trend trio is “Sensory Empowerment,” which reflects consumers’ emphasis on wellness with textiles that are skin-safe and tactile.