Science Museum Holds Sustainable Fashion Show

By Areebah Bharmal

Reporting Texas

Students dressed in designs featuring layered sequins and other embellishments walked a makeshift runway under dinosaur bones at the Texas Science & Natural History Museum on March 11.

The students donned a variety of clothing, from dresses to tops and jackets — all made using sustainable techniques.

“It’s a stunning location to combine with the science of the sustainable sequins, but also the fashion,” Danish designer Nikolaj Storm said.

The “Particles of Color: The Future of Sustainability in the Fashion Industry” event featured a fashion show with designs by Storm and jewelry by Claire Peterman, a University of Texas alumna working in the jewelry industry.

The event follows last year’s opening of the “Particles of Color: Where Science Meets Fashion” exhibit at the science museum. The exhibit centers on a compostable sequin developed by UT professor Jessica Ciarla. 

“Sustainability is important in every (aspect) of our lives,” said Ciarla, Particles of Color research director. “It’s also important to think of it as an interdisciplinary problem to solve. If we just isolate it to this one specialization, we’re missing a lot of the key components that will actually move us forward.”

Carolyn Connerat, Texas Science & Natural History Museum managing director, said she was excited for the fashion show.

“It really is bringing in new visitors to the museum who might not have come just to see dinosaurs and our natural history museum,” Connerat said. “So they start to see that intersection between how the planet was formed over millions of years, and that here we are today, and what’s the impact of science and sustainability and fashion on the world we live in.”

Storm’s piece for the exhibit inspired the rest of the designs featured in the fashion show.

“(Ciarla) told me that the whole exhibition was called ‘Particles of Color’ … it just reminded me of molecules, space, the cosmic,” Storm said. “I did my own print that I handmade that looked like some kind of weird cosmos with a lot of colors and then added the sequins.”

Similar to the exhibit, the event explored the intersection of sustainability and fashion. Sustainable techniques used for the designs in the show included organic materials, natural dyes and Ciarla’s sustainable sequin, Storm said.

“We are on this planet as a part of the planet, and we have the (right) to be here like every other living being,” Storm said. “So we should also take care of it for future generations.”

For Ciarla, taking care of her two children sparked the idea of sustainable fashion. She said even the organic clothing she bought needed to be washed before she would put it on her child, and that ignited questions about clothing and the fashion industry.

“We already know what we put into our bodies in terms of food,” Ciarla said. “That’s easier to understand. I’m buying organic, and non-GMO. I don’t want those chemicals in our body. Well, it’s the same thing when you’re thinking of fashion. You don’t want to put those things on top of your body.”

Storm wasn’t the only Danish expert to make the trip to Austin. The fashion show was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Ciarla that featured Storm and industry experts Josefine Cramer and Julie Verdich.

“My research was initiated by working in Copenhagen and learning about their material innovation,” Ciarla said. “So bridging these two countries together is going to be fascinating because this is where the particles of color research started — in Denmark.”

The “Particles of Color” exhibit will be open at the Texas Science & Natural History Museum through the end of the year.