From red crushed beetles and purple sea slug mucus to hi-tech chemically engineered dyes, humans have always desired to create colourful textiles. It is a journey from the “natural” plant and animal-based dyes of the ancient world to the mechanisation of the Industrial Revolution, leading to the refined chemical engineering of the 21st century. In this third webinar in our Creating Colour series, Dr Mark Liu examined the many different strategies to embed colour into fabric, from pigments that bind to the surface of the textile, dyes that embed themselves in the fabric or materials created with surface structures that have optical properties.
Dr Mark Liu is a fashion and textile designer best known for pioneering zero-waste designs during his master’s research at Central Saint Martin’s College, London, and while working at Alexander McQueen. His collections have been exhibited in museums around the world. His PhD research used 3D mathematics to invent the field of ‘non-Euclidean fashion patternmaking’, which enables scientists and engineers to understand patternmaking while working on advancements in the fields of 3D patternmaking algorithms and 3D printing, which can be applied to space suits and medical garments. A former Chancellor’s postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, he collaborated across disciplines to explore equitable gender laws in the fast fashion industry, synthetic biology and algae-based carbon sequestering materials. His 2023 book “Sustainable Fashion Greenwash” exposes the misleading advertising of ‘sustainable’ fashion.
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