A dress worn by ceremony master Andrea Montano Montes at this year’s Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, Sweden, was created from sustainable fabric.
The fashion, textile and furniture industries are looking for new materials with a smaller environmental footprint, while the Swedish paper and textile industries are working together to produce textiles from local raw material.
Now, a cross-industry effort has been made to produce a dress for the Nobel Banquet from sustainable materials.
“We wanted – at one of Sweden’s most high-profile events – to highlight the sustainability aspect in our own industry,” says Anna Bergquist, vice president for business unit insulation at Ahlstrom-Munksjö.
“Industries such as fashion and interior design face the challenge of producing fabrics for a growing population while at the same time reducing their impact on the environment. This requires a focus on innovation and circularity, and on cross-industry collaboration to build a more sustainable future.”
The goal of the Establishing locally grown textiles in Sweden (ENTIS) project has been to establish conditions for a more sustainable textile industry through a series of innovative cross-industry solutions.
Textiles made from wood fibre already exist, but what made this project unique was that it also assessed the possibility of recycling the material and challenged existing production and recycling technologies to achieve a circular flow. The new textile that was developed can be used in the textile, interior design and furniture industries.
The dress which was worn by ceremony master Andrea Montano Montes will wear at this year’s Nobel Banquet in Stockholm on 10 December is an example of the results achieved in the cross-industry collaboration. The project has brought together companies in the Swedish paper and textile industries to produce textiles using raw materials from the pulp industry. The dress has been produced by Svenskt Konstsilke.
“The fabric has been made from the same raw material as our electrotechnical insulation papers. The project will open up further interesting research and development opportunities for us, and we are happy that this collaboration has led to a new product launch by Svenskt Konstsilke. We are now exploring the possibility of a commercial launch for the furniture and interior design industries,” adds Bergquist.
