Added: 10 months ago
From: TEDtalksDirector
Views: 34,413
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (246)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Cool! I want to creep people out with my living clothes! :)

  • WAW

  • Can you get a yeast infection from wearing those tight pants?

  • fucking brilliant now we can clothe third world countries an save the earth lol

  • If you can harden it, make an acoustic guitar! What would it sound like; alive?

  • @LettersToTheNumbers Probably like ... Pearl Jam... Ooooahhhhhhh I ... I'm still aliiiiiiiiiiive.

  • Suzanne .. we need to talk .. i can help!

  • Hemp absorbs more CO2 than trees and can be used in making plastics, textiles, improved concrete and a fiberglass material. Much better!

  • brilliant

  • Hey guys and commenter outthere...why are you so negative and destructive to such a candid idea like this? If we apply some energy to something like this we might come develop something new...Tha she is in Ted talks is very cool since most probably she will be contacted or get in touch with somebody in the scientific community who actually has something that coud be used in combination or adaptation to her idea.....Im sure about it......It is a matter of keeping our minds open! wakeup!

  • GOD DAM HIPPYS

  • might beeswax help to make it more water-resistant, while still keeping it flexible?

  • fail

  • i can not grow my on clothes ...but this is interesting process

  • Ok so I just had an idea for a sponge material.

  • At first I thought it was gross, but then I realized that skinning animals as one of the methods to acquire materials for clothing is ACTUALLY disgusting. I mean, the clothing that is made from this revolutionary process only LOOKS like skin - but as she showed, it can always be dyed. That indigo garment looks just like a jean jacket! I'd wear that.

  • stupid. How much energy was consumed? Hemp is a perfectly sustainable crop...which can be harvested for pennies on the cotton dollar. Who needs a hydrodegradable substitute for leather when beef is in excess of leather demand? Fashion designers really don't possess the intellectual capacity of their peers on TED talks.

  • Comment removed

  • I mean, it's really interesting and all but I can't help but think after watching the formation process and hearing her say that it resembles human skin that it is just fucking disgusting.

  • Kinda odd she is holding a microphone while one is already attached to her face.

  • good!

    

  • Can you imagine the smell of those baths? And for a dress that dissolves if you sweat... But it is a great beginning for a future industry.

  • Lots of sugar ... wouldn't be more efficient planting cotton rather than sugar cane and tea in the first place ?

  • @supercorm  sugar cane is the only source of sugar ? she mentioned using our food waste to feed the culture

  • What I like about this is the concept of having a shirt that have no seams, it sounds "cool" and future-like.

    But just one question....what if the bugs are still there when the product ships ?

    What if just "two" survives ?

    What if out of the billions of future shipped products, a few bugs "evolve" to resist being killed off in the refinement process ?

    What will they live off then ?

    Now we have the perfect B horror movie.

  • @Bracerjack You mean, like how we make insulin?

  • @Bracerjack sounds like your clothing could eat you in this scenario

  • @Bracerjack what the hell are these bugs you're talking about?

  • @dragonamt

    The possibility that they evolve the taste for Human Flesh :)

    News Flash, Today at Five, a Women was found half eaten alive and screaming in pain after wearing those cloths.

  • @Bracerjack I still missed the bugs part...

  • great idea but hemp fiber is just as good if not better ,and it can be waterproof.

  • @GrudgyDiablo It decomposes in water. And it's like, brown. I think I'd notice.

  • @yvald1 woman + gun = u dead, muthafucka!!!

  • The revolution is now, welcome to the future.

  • Cool! She does a good job of explaining all of this, very easy to follow, bravo.

  • Dude, people ought to dress according to there environment. Living in Southern Cali, we need to dress like the Natives used to. That would make women more interesting to look at and my muscles bigger.

  • intereresting but what about hemp? It's easier

  • damn, that takes shitloads of shuga

  • Comment removed

  • fascinating

  • I'm gonna be honest, I would never, ever wear this.

  • We already grow clothes...it's called cotton.

  • @atheistNalabama Seriously! God I hate the pretentious attitude of organic neo-hippies. I wouldn't wear any of that shit...it looks like buffalo bill's private collection.

  • Metamorphosis complete! swarm needs more green tea... :)

  • I don't see how this is pratical in any way

  • @wallcrawler50 grow ur own clothes,1) no need to spend money 2)good for environment probably the clothes will eventualy decay and can be processed into manure for plants etc 3) probably the main reason for someone to come up with this idea is no more killing of animals to make clothes.

    im just making shit as i go, but these reasons seem to be pretty sane

  • I choose to grow a white iphone :D

  • As someone already commented. Great plastic bag replacement. If it rips when you get home, who cares. Just like today's paper bags.

  • Kombucha is really easy to brew also.

  • grow replacement dick skins

  • Incredible!

  • Bags would be great for the future, instead of paper or plastic, and maybe containers or boxes where you sell your products in. Great step towards the future!

  • @RockalilyDunne But it would be the pits to get if you get caught in the rain with it. :P Mmmm jello bags...

  • @ProfessorJackal Well obviously. I wounld't want your food to get wet! I mean when they have managed to create a formula that is waterproof. Do you think that man was able to reach the moon on the first attempt?

    This is amazing. I really am happy Suzanne Lee worked this hard. As I said, it's great step towards the future.

  • Comment removed

  • Suzannes way of thinking is what makes her and her designs so attractive and inspirational as a real innovative designer. Any minor point about wearability she will be able to solve in the near future, no doubt. Just brilliant!

  • it uses the lotion on its skin, then places it in the basket...

    :)

  • The whole talk was not amazing until she got to the end and talked about the possibilities of what we could grow. I don't know why I didn't think about it but that just peaked my interest and got me thinking a lot. Brilliant stuff!

  • @andyrooney12 That part you found amazing was fictional. It is not possible to do the things she is imagining, nor will it ever become possible through the technologies she employs. There can never be a way to use existing bacteria to turn anything into a car or car components, we have to develop / program those microbes ourselves. If you want to see an amazing video on actual, REAL biotechnology producing useful results, see this TED talk from a few weeks back: watch?v=SFW0TEFKCxk

  • this is a step back in technology... not seeing any benefit in clothing which you cannot actually wear.

  • I'm gonna start making clothes from my poo tomorrow!

  • humans over nature??? ...scary

  • Spray it with some sort of wax. That would slow the process. IF you're not worried about being "100% organic" there are plenty of things you could treat the material with.

  • This is ridiculous...she's wearing something like mould. That would feel lovely on ur skin!

  • omg that thing alive?? eyuckkkkk

  • @viralistique theres already things living on your clothes, skin and inside you.

  • @viralistique Pussy

  • @viralistique by feeding she meant its absorbing her sweat like a cloth would. only this material kinda self destructs by bio-degrading itself once it absorbs it. its not technicly alive. 

  • 5:46.. Hydroponics?

  • That is very interesting...I wonder if dipping the finished product in something like chlorine would neutralize the material and stop it from being affected so much by it's environment? I'm thinking along the lines of PH levels...

  • WTF

  • who would have ever thought the 'mother' of vinegar could be worn? ...why would anyone want to wear a bacteria ridden cellulose?

  • I like the idea of using biology to produce materials and other items (such as batteries), but I don't really subscribe to this view that the use of natural, organic ingredients is somehow better than the use of synthetic ones. If this idea is to be viable on a large scale, they surely wouldn't use tea of the sort that you can buy in a supermarket; they'd probably synthesise or extract the active compounds from something cheaper, but then it wouldn't appeal to hippies so much.

  • Would be good if we could grow leather.

  • @Nashy119

    we can, it's just attached to lots of stakes.

  • gross

  • At 4:07 she says "So what I want to do is say to a future bug..." which makes it clear that she is in the beginning stages of what could be a fabric of the future. It's a shame that the top comment is so close-minded about it.

  • @maverik713 It is not reasonable to assume a person will make amazing progress on a project in the future, we can't just ignore existing problems with a technology and say "We'll fix them in the future!". When judged on their own merits, the future developments Suzanne is imagining appear unreasonable and based on a grossly incomplete understanding of biotechnology. She's used existing bacteria to grow sheets of cellulose jelly and she's already fantasising about growing cars and houses.

  • @maverik713 but ur the top comment o.O

  • We choose to grow weeds

  • SO COOL!

  • What's worng with cotton, sheep wool, leather or even hemp? I mean they are all organic and natural!

    I like the medical uses though.

  • @HarveyMushman85 The problem is that many clothes is made from Oil for Example the gum on your shoes... We have to be independent from Oil. The problem by sheep wool and leather is that you can´t produze leather or sheep wool for 6 Billion People? And the animals furt is not free from Methane. Just small things take us in very BIG PROBLEMS. :DD English bad? Thanks to my English Teacher <3 xD

  • @HiiTek09

    Dann red halt deutsch! lol

  • @HiiTek09 You conveniently leave out hemp and cotton in regard to viable solutions for cutting our oil dependence in regard to textiles. Why do we need to find new ways to make textiles when we have options we don't use due to toxin propaganda. Hemp is a great solution that will never be used because of oil companies controlling governments controlling the legality of a weed that grows with little effort.

  • @thelowmax That´s right, But i think too many peoples are too blind to see this... It´s our work to beginn or discover new ways ... At our time we have so many new ways to be independet.

    We have plastic that can be reycele or composted... but why we dont use it? Yes, the Oil Companys and the governments are Money Addict. We have 0 chances to change this... Other Example the Atom energy, we had seen Japan and what we have done ? Nothing we just hoping that this never can happen in our State!

  • @thelowmax Hemp that scratchy stuff worse than linen and only used for making ropes and sealing water/heating tubes?

  • Is it alkali-soluble? i.e. Can you make it into rayon?

    Guess the xanthation reagents are a bit undesirable... How much better/worse is a cane sugar based bioreformation process from just growing cotton? Water usage has to be similar and cotton processing is pretty well optimised.  Not that I am fundamentally against biosynthesis of textiles in vats, but if your starting material is cane sugar you still need fields of photosynthesizing machines to capture your energy and carbon.

  • Do those baths produce a horrendous stink?

  • well her point is that there is a technique that has the potential to use sugar and microbes to produce cellulose fabric.

    This technique needs to be perfected.

    microbes can be altered to work on different substrates like sugar alcohols or other raw materials (that are waste),

    also variation is microbes can produce different fabrics.

    Further study will lead to a more sophisticated process and product.

    This is not the final product but a prototype

    .....phew...have to spell out everything....

  • I wonder if the designer of Lady Gaga's meat dress will be on TED talks next?

  • So you have to grow sugar to then make this concoction to then make clothing. Why don't you just plant cotton instead of the sugar needed to make this shit?

  • why does she have a headset microphone and a hand-held microphone?

  • @nellyspageli - So that people like you could at least have something to ask.

  • @nellyspageli I believe one is for the audience sound system and the other is for the video recording.

  • kul

  • I think the concept is nice, but the current result, no so much. However, by doing this talk, the designer/experimenter brings in more brains to think about this. It's probably worth pursuing, especially if people could grow their own by themselves, for themselves.

  • Ok, so how do you make this waterproof? It's great that it is organic but is there something you could apply to it (perhaps even chemical) that would sustain it for a period of time with minimal environmental damage. As I see it, it is still better than slaughtering animals.

  • Using a living organism through photosynthesism providing materal for clothes... Wonder if this was invented before? What about cotton, linnen, and in the extension silk and wool. This is a revolution!!!!.... NOT

  • very cool idea, why not? :)

    I hope thea are able to develop this idea, it really could save nature.

  • @LuRawen Save nature from what? At the best this could be used to add an additional line of novelty clothing or as material that doesn't have to worry about getting wet. I don't see how this would address over-population, heavy metal pollution, nuclear weapons/general warfare, loss of biodiversity, pollution from fossil fuels/industry, plastic waste products, or any of the other problems that nature has right now.

  • @justicetrooper Sry I said that wrong I didnt mean this could save the nature from everything that people have ever done.Just meant it could save SOME of it,like waters from the toxic chemicals that come from fabric-dyeing cotton factories etc.This material can be coloured with such a little amount of colour, or in fact with nature-dyeing technigues.Of course they'd still need to develop this product,not to break in the water etc,but I think this could be an ecological option to make fashion.:)

  • @LuRawen Though that's a much more specific claim, I still find fault in it. If utilized, this could only be used for specialty indoor clothing that people don't sweat heavily in. The demographic for buying clothing that could not get wet would either live in a desert or buy the product in addition to clothing of contemporary material, and thus I could only see this reducing the current use of contemporary materials by much less than a single percent.(Unless it were made waterproof)

  • Well Actually... You get jeans with 30-50bucks in here... and im pretty effin sure that your "progress" takes atleas 100bucks to stack on...

  • amazing

  • Nice legs!

  • Brilliant. A step in the right direction. Just a few more kinks to solve. If only the industries to make the sugar and acetic acid were also enviro friendly. I would have thought natural waxes does the waterproof thing.

  • I like my sweat shop clothes better, thank you...

  • Tea, sugar, fermentation.. it's Kombucha isn't it? Quite popular actually as a "tea mushroom".

    I'm looking at one right now at my table, turning a bottle of oversugered tea into a "healthy potion".

    It's really hard to believe, that she's wearing one of these. It smells a little when it "works" and it surely get's slimy again when it soaks the sweat.

    It's however totaly awesome, she gave it a shot as a material. Hope for update about making it hydrophobic.

    Good luck Suzanne!!

  • @cyberbobcat yes it is Kombucha ...the jelly-like substance is called a 'mother' ...a type of 'vinegar mother'

  • I find it rather annoying that she says she didn't want to use "chemicals" to dye the clothes.

    Apart from that, cool science.

  • Do food processing plants have waste sugar???

  • niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiceeee­eeeeeeeee

  • This can be used as a weapon in the hands of evil scientist to produce Justine Biebers. Kill this woman!

  • That's fucking awesome!

  • Interesting talk

  • Didn't Cartman already grow a Shakey's out of stem cells? Lee is way behind the times.

  • I'd tap her.

  • thats all very well, however the real problem within the textile industry is that it still ignores, at least at a main stream level, hemp and bamboo.

  • "as it's organic i'm really keen to reduce the use of any chemicals"

    1. Everything she uses is a chemical - cellulose been the primary one here.

    2. I understand that by chemicals what she probably meant was artificial chemicals or additives .. but why is this a bad thing. It could greatly improve the rate and yield of her fabric production.

    3. What she should have said was "toxic" or "environmentally damaging" chemicals, and not taint every chemical, artificical or natural, with the same brush.

  • @1989Gez1989 Besides potential toxicity, you won't have those chemicals wherever you are necessarily, or know how to use them. Then it's dependent on either two skills, or the chemical supplier.

  • @1989Gez1989

    You're getting unnecessarily caught up in semantics. Of course she meant industrial chemicals.

  • @lamesjazo Not unnecessarily at all.

  • @595o Yes, completely unnecessarily. I doubt a single person at the TED Conference misunderstood her.

  • That is freaking incredible! Once she works out how to make it water resistant (at least so that it doesn't fall apart in water) it'll be even better. I wonder how much it costs to make something - would much money be lost in the process of clothing the homeless and so on?

  • I totally see this as some post apocalyptic reality... why not start before the apocalypse. Very innovative, very cool!

  • Cue the wet T-shirt contest!

  • SOME of us are pretty damn smart.

  • I want TED in HD :(

  • Neat!

  • What they've got here isn't cloth, it's evapourated cellulose jelly. They need a way to make long-chain cellulose, to make it form macro structures, and then to separate out those macroscopic fibres to spin into threads.

  • This material is useless. Sweat makes it biodegrade and rain makes it lose its seams. Might as well wear a huge pan cake.

  • @Toxicflu not necessarily useless - as she says, indoor materials might be a starting place. Besides, with the right coating, it could be made more useful.

  • @Toxicflu Why not wear a huge pancake ?

  • @alphakristjan Mmmmh, pancake!

  • @Toxicflu It's not so bad mate. Have faith. =D

  • @Toxicflu the current material is but with genetically engineering the microbes to form fibers with specific properties, just as what she said, it would become a good alternative to the common textile materials

  • @Toxicflu I agree with you that it is not worthwhile (currently) for people who want their clothes to last like our generation. But in this increasingly disposable society - why not make faux leather clothes that last 2 weeks, if they only cost $2 and are form fitting? The alternative is you can buy real leather for $500 or so... its really whether you want to pay more and get more quality or go real cheap.

  • @Toxicflu I know useless. Bamboo, Coconut husk and Hemp are much more productive and useful not to mention they are allready in use. This was just let her kamboocha ferment too much when she came up with this idea.

  • @Toxicflu I know useless. Bamboo, Coconut husk and Hemp are much more productive and useful not to mention they are allready in use. This was just let her kamboocha ferment too much when she came up with this idea.

    Real Indigo is not enviromentlly friendly by the way it is endangered not to mention expensive and turns your skin blue.

  • @Toxicflu dude she says that, it's a work in progress. don't get nit picky. the material that we use today releases shit loads of horrible chemicals and water into the environment just so we can wear and throw out our shirt away when it goes out of fashion.

    at least she's trying something.

    DUDE

  • @Toxicflu Funnel Cake bro.

  • This reminds me of making sambuca

  • @HigherPlanes do you mean kombucha?

  • @gaiagale lol I think so. It's that stuff that you make by fermentation and it tastes like mango or peach or whatever flavor you put into it. I only tried it once it's good shit man.

  • @HigherPlanes thanks for replying in a friendly way it was reasuring than we understood each other even though we are complete strangers ;-])

    ...I was thinking you meant the fermented tea rather than the booze ....'sambuca' is a fermented potion too but the process leans to the production of alcohol instead of the mild vinegared tea 'kombucha' ..."mango or peach" sounds delicious I've only used green tea as as my base ... nice communicating with you

    gentle free soaring to ya ;-])

  • @gaiagale Anytime my friend. Definitely give the peach kombucha a try some day. Peace!

  • @Toxicflu How do you know it bio-degrades? looks to me it was already washed and still in good shape?

  • @Toxicflu It is useless now, just like the ancient clothing were, but it is a start of a new process that may succeed.

  • @Toxicflu We can always count on Captain Obvious

  • @Toxicflu

    well, this is only the beginning. most of what we use for fabrics is un-sustainable and it's production is toxic so don't just douse everything in your negativity.

  • @Toxicflu dude give them a chace its in the begining stages mby they can ad somthing to stop the degradeing they just need a few years

  • @Toxicflu

    With such a limited mind, what are you doing watching TED video's? Go watch some gangsta rap or something.

    The speaker herself says it's not yet ready and new future biotechnology will be needed. Biotechnology will be used in sooo many ways in the future. Bacteria that make oil for example. The possibility of clothing I never heard of before and for me is an eye opener.

  • @lazyd0g true. But besides tobacco, cotton require the MOST pesticides/herbicides per acre. Then there is the whole manufacturing process that uses even MORE fuel/power.

    This is justa concept for a new possible way to make a myrid amount of products, and with genetic enginering of the microbes, it has vast potential.

    For clothes, we should seriously look at hemp first, because it can readily be adapted to current manufacturing processes, and it uses NO herb/pesticides.

  • chicks clothes dissolve? i don't see the problem with this.

  • @mitchnesbitt not ALL women are attractive siire. And then there is the issue of some men wearing the clothes... sooo.......

    *shudder* :)

  • I know that Tea is Awesome! , i think gonna try it :)

  • A better intro would have been nice, and THEN explain how it works.

    Pop Sci also talked about people working to create growable homes, basically a very fast growing tree that you cut away from as desired. Like she said though, this clothing isn't a replacement, but could be used for more fashion styles.

  • grow your own wood paper. or condoms.

  • wat brand is this

  • That was really neat, very fun and interesting concept!

  • Oo

  • The basic principles here for making materials is good, but the idea of growing a house and even more so a car are ridiculous. This example is pure cellulose, but with a bit more complex engineering you could grow fibers of protein and end up with something like a hybrid between slik and kevlar for lightweight flexible and high strenght clothes. Making the bacteria grow spider silk fibers f.ex. could be interresting.

  • hahahhahhaahhaha yessss

  • Not bad for self made clothes. I can see this improving if the idea gets picked up by corporations with labs and stuff.

  • If it helps save the environment from the careless mega corporations, then I’d wear it.

  • "Creativity is more important than knowledge"

    ~~Albert Einstein

  • @carefulcarpenter so you're quoting Einstein because you believe he was knowledgeable, and the point you are trying to make is that knowledge is less important that creativity. Shouldn't you quote someone creative instead?