Behaving Textiles—A Practice-Based and Design-Led Approach Towards Sustainable Shape-Changing Textiles

Behaving textiles emerged in the past decades as a new family of fibre-based materials with the ability to reversibly change over time. This transformation corresponds to a change of physical property, shape or state initiated in the material’s molecular structure in response to varying conditions in their surrounding environment. By introducing movement and change, therefore time, as an essential dimension of their presence, they challenge the way materials are traditionally understood by designers as passive and inert substances . However, too few designers are trained to express their ideas through temporal concept and qualities, which is all the more so concerning that global ecological challenges impose to revisit the temporality of the current textile production. Behaving textiles are nevertheless regularly discussed in the context of sustainabilityle fashion for their potential to materialise an emotionally durable fashion and for their capacity to generate renewable energy, despite the complex and extremely diversified materiality they encompass. Indeed, behaving textiles cannot be restricted to a specific material composition or shaping process. Furthermore, they are regularly questioned for the ecological impact of their production and use.<br/><br/>Building on the practice-based and design-led research approach developed in the Soft Matters research group of Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, this communication will address the challenges faced by textile designers when working with behaving textiles while discussing strategic eco-design approaches relevant for their conception and materialisation. First Lingxiao Luo’s research into shape-changing knitted fabrics is introduced as a case study for examining the technical and poetic challenges linked to the design of garments with dynamic expressions, but also to reflect on the tension between the desire for change/novelty and the aspiration for sustainability at stake within the fashion industry. Secondly, through <i>Reef</i>, a self-actuated ceiling informed by dielectric elastomers and changing shape according to wind patterns, it will be the occasion to question the nature of interactions supported by behaving textiles and how they can contribute to the design of more interconnective timescapes. Finally, a series of methods borrowed to textile and fashion design practices such as design for disassembly, biomimicry, zero-waste design or biofabrication will convoked to question how behaving textiles can become part of a more resilient culture. All in all, the aim is to underline the necessity to apprehend more holistically the conception, materialisation and consumption of smart textiles.