Design to Fade

Our times require thinking again about not only what to create but also how to create. The newly found fragility of globalization and the resulting positive effect on the environment highlights the value of designing for a better world. Design to Fade considers hyper-local sourcing shaping a new model for just-in-time production.

Leading the way to a zero-waste future by reinventing the way we make sportswear, PUMA teams up with Streamateria and Living Colour, specialists in biodesign. Both have developed practices that use nature as a design tool. The result of the  collaboration are new biodegradable lifestyle and performance collections that are dyed using bacteria and manufactured-on-demand wherever they might be needed.

Design to Fade is a collaborative between Puma Innovation, who began investing in biodesign technology in 2018, Living Colour who in that same year developed a unique method to dye textiles using bacteria and Streamateria who has pioneered a way to create non-woven cellulose material for use in garments. The partnership is completed with Innovation by Design, a premiere experience agency who has been the design and realisation force behind all three Puma Biodesign exhibits at Milan Design Week beginning in 2018. But that is just the beginning of the story. 

The collaboration partnership spans four countries amounting to an international powerhouse of creativity who together represent among our best hopes for a more humanistic future. The mission; harnessing the power of design to make the world a better place by minimising taxation on our environment and facilitating an active lifestyle. 

This was our mission at the onset of the partnership and we were well prepared for another exciting Milan Design Week exhibition. It promised to be the best yet; evolving our showings of the past from conceptual work-in-progress to tangible products. Developing the work and the exhibit was an exciting and fun process which brought team members together at various stages to Milan, Germany, Rotterdam and Stockholm. Then COVID-19 emerged which brought a number of challenges to our work. At first it amounted to a series of inconveniences mostly having to do with travel and logistics, planning and commitments. When the event was postponed and then cancelled we had to shift gears entirely; translating our physical exhibit to a virtual-only one. But there is another byproduct that the crisis brought to this team of collaborators. It strengthened our resolve that design not only can help make the world a better place but it necessarily should. Puma Innovation is extremely proud to be in a position to help accelerate the drive to a better future through design; one that is less harmful to our environment.