Designer Neri Oxman has developed a bacterial textile dyeing method in which living bacteria produce the colour. A bacterial solution is sprayed onto a 3D-knitted silk textile, where it grows into faded indigo and pink pigments.
The project, called Vigils, comes from the Oxman studio. It is aimed at designers, artists and collaborators who want to “create new forms of material and aesthetic expression.”
How bacterial textile dyeing works
In this process, tussah silk thread in the fabric is coated with “bacterially sensitive chemicals.” Once the spray lands, those chemicals act as “a bioreactor.”
The fabric then sits for 24 hours. During that time, the solution and chemicals interact and form a living bacterial culture. The organism, “numbering in the billions of cells,” spreads across the textile and leaves amino acids behind. Those amino acids colour the fabric.
The lab used the BL21 strain of Escherichia coli, or E. coli, a bacterium common in biotechnology research. Synthetic biology, the engineering of living systems for new functions, is the field behind the method.
The team says the designer controls the pattern in the method. Growth is directed by “where and how densely the designer directed the culture to grow” through the spray.
Fabric colour has a long history of playing with light, and The Shimmer Effect: Where Lamé Fits in Fashion looks at how surface and sheen shape the way we read textiles.
The fabric is then washed and dried. This removes the bacteria, but the pigment stays in the cloth.
The team explains the principle in one line: “The microorganisms respond to signals associated with the textile substrate, making biological activity an active component of the material process.” They describe Vigils as “a research-driven exploration of biological textile colouration.”
A prototype, not an industrial process
The team is clear about the project’s scope. It “is intended to investigate the interaction between synthetic biology and material systems rather than to represent a fully optimised industrial dyeing process.”
The studio made four capes to demonstrate the technique. Each one shows muted colours and patterns that the bacteria produced, with visible variation from cape to cape.
Living material is becoming a design medium in its own right, as seen in Katerina Shukshina’s Living Plant Footwear, which turns growing plants into wearable, short-lived pieces.
The studio presents the method as a possible alternative to “resource-intensive” industrial textile dyeing. Oxman argues that the bacteria do more than apply colour. “The result is not simply an alternative way of applying color: the biological process becomes part of the design itself, producing patterns and variations that could not be achieved through conventional dyeing and making each textile an expression of the process that created it.”
The project has not undergone a Life Cycle Assessment, the standard method for measuring environmental outputs. It remains a prototype for the technique.
Oxman opened a New York studio in Midtown Manhattan in 2024, and the designer is known for her work in material ecology. Vigils will need a full environmental assessment and a larger test run before it can claim a place beside industrial dyeing. The four capes show that the process works. They do not yet show that it scales.
Source: dezeen.com
Frequently asked questions
How does bacterial textile dyeing work in the Vigils project?
A bacterial solution is sprayed onto a 3D-knitted silk textile, where tussah silk thread coated with bacterially sensitive chemicals acts as a bioreactor. The fabric then sits for 24 hours while the bacteria grow into a living culture that spreads across the textile and leaves amino acids behind. Those amino acids colour the fabric.
Which bacteria does the Vigils project use to colour fabric?
The lab used the BL21 strain of Escherichia coli, or E. coli, a bacterium common in biotechnology research. The designer controls the pattern by directing where and how densely the culture grows through the spray.
Do the bacteria remain in the fabric after dyeing?
No, the fabric is washed and dried afterward, which removes the bacteria. The pigment stays in the cloth.
Has the Vigils method been tested as an industrial dyeing process?
No, the team describes Vigils as a prototype and says it is not intended to represent a fully optimised industrial dyeing process. The project has also not undergone a Life Cycle Assessment, and the studio made four capes to demonstrate the technique.
More in
