A Texas Museum exhibit that combines science and fashion

While many visitors to the Texas Museum of Science and Natural History are familiar with exhibits featuring towering dinosaur fossils from millions of years ago, the museum’s newest exhibits are all about sustainability for the future. Thing.

Every year, the fashion industry produces plastics for the manufacture of synthetic materials, using the equivalent of 300 million bathtubs of petroleum in the process. To advance the industry’s vision of a cleaner, brighter future, the new addition to Particles of Color: Where Science Meets Fashion explores the use of compostable, plant-based, and biodegradable materials in clothing, accessories, and jewelry. I’m exploring its use. And art.

University of Texas at Austin faculty, students, researchers, and alumni of the Textiles and Apparel Department are combining fashion design know-how with the expertise of materials researchers to explore how newly developed sustainable sequins can be used in a wide range of works of art. I have shown you that it can be used.

“The fashion industry is a huge contributor to plastic pollution,” said Jessica Ciarula, faculty member in the textile and apparel department behind the exhibit. “We wanted to show that there is a way to make something better with the materials we already have.”

The exhibition features more than 50 shiny objects made from a compostable material called polylactic acid. Polylactic acid is combined with natural, non-toxic dyes to create colorful high fashion clothing, jewelry and art. Polylactic acid is made from agricultural waste and is easy to work with, Ciara said. It is practical for fashion purposes because it does not dissolve in water, but it decomposes when composted.

The University of Tokyo’s research into sustainable sequins began five years ago with Ciarula University’s Presidential Award for Global Learning. Nathaniel Lind, associate professor in the McKetta School of Chemical Engineering. Luisa Gil Fandino, associate professor of textiles and apparel;

Now, visitors to the exhibition can learn how UT researchers have adapted the material for use in fashion, and discover works from Austin to New York that have been recruited to create pieces that incorporate innovative materials. You can enjoy the opportunity to see the work of designers.

The installation will be the first new exhibit at the Texas Museum of Science and Natural History since it reopened in September 2023 after an 18-month closure and extensive renovation. His fourth floor of the museum has been designated as the Science Frontier Gallery, designed to house exhibits on advanced scientific research and show how scientific discoveries can help solve contemporary problems and concerns. Masu.

“Visitors of all ages can learn how the research being done here on the UT Austin campus creates compostable materials used in clothing we can all wear,” said Carolyn Connerat, the museum’s director. “By doing so, we can explore what kind of impact we can have on the natural world.”