Yes, that white stuff cows make. Anke Domaske, a German fashion designer/microbiologist, has found a way to create a special fiber from milk and use it to make fashionable eco-clothes.
The 28-year-old designer realized there’s more to milk than meets the eye, and since she’s always had a thing for science, she and her team spent years experimenting with turning it into eco-thread. It was a lot like experimenting ingredients you have in your cupboard, only in this case the result was truly revolutionary. They came up with a special mixture containing a protein derived from sour milk, which is processed in a lab, near the German city of Brehmen. It’s heated up and pressed through a kind of mincing machine to create the threads. And the best thing is the milk used is low grade and would normally be thrown away.
But how does a fashion designer come up with a complicated formula for creating bio thread from milk? Anke Domaske learned to make clothes as a child, from her great grandmother, a milliner, but she also had a passion for science and even won a contest for up-and-coming scientists, as a teenager. After she finished school she went to Tokyo, Japan, where she sold t-shirts she designed herself. On her return home she began studying microbiology and set-up her own fashion label on the side. In short she managed to balance her two greatest interests and the result is astonishing.
