FABRIC: KOMBUCHA
Regions: Global
Fabric Name:
Kombucha
Origin:
SCOBYs (Symbiotic Colony of Yeast and Bacteria)
Who made our fabric:
Kombucha Couture, Sasha Laurin, San Francisco, California
Natural history and ecology:
It is compostable, not just biodegradable. The entire fabric is grown from a microbe, not a plant or animal.
What makes this so special: All Kombucha Couture fabric, clothing and jewelry starts with fermenting tea using a Kombucha mother culture (SCOBY), and then growing sheets of bio cellulose that can be sewn together as you would leather. The fabric can be grown in various thicknesses to reach the desired size. As the SCOBY grows, it takes on the shape of the container, floating on top of the tea. This means you can grow the fabric in any shape or size your container allows.
Live clothing and fashion made through the power of fermentation.
“There are so many steps along the way where there are toxins involved - if we can develop kombucha to behave like leather, it would transform the fashion landscape we have right now.”
Designer, Sasha Laurin
Image courtesy of Sasha Laurin
“It all began with the slice of Cheese. My passion for zero-waste production led me to begin exploring the uses of the SCOBY that has to be pruned as it continues growing through the fermentation cycles, and it continues to be a very symbiotic journey as I now am working to also commercialize my kombucha to create one of the first circular economies between kombucha the beverage and kombucha the fabric.”
— Sacha Laurin/Kombucha
Sacha Laurin
Meet Sacha Laurin, founder of Kombucha Couture. Kombucha Jewelry and Couture are unique creations from Sacha whose career as a professional cheesemaker has taken her from fermenting milk with bacteria and yeasts to fermenting green tea with SCOBYs (Symbiotic Colony of Yeast and Bacteria) and transforming the growing "colony" into live clothing and fashion. She still loves cheese! Her love and expertise in the alchemy, science, and art of cheesemaking have crossed over into a passion for understanding the kombucha culture and how best to develop it as a sustainable fabric that could be used in developing countries as well as in haute couture and daily couture. Sacha's goal is to create and further this new versatile fabric that can mimic leather, canvas, silk, or butterfly wings depending on growing and production techniques. Her love for color and the magical play between light and texture has inspired her to use food dyes which keep the live culture breathing and vibrant.