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Columnist and Technology

Could spider silk be the answer to sustainable fashion?

Our Future Chronicles column explores an imagined history of inventions and developments yet to come. In its latest instalment, Rowan Hooper reveals how by 2029, we had learned how to make synthetic spider silk, leading to a revolution in clothing

By Rowan Hooper

15 January 2025

2RTXJED A common garden spider (Araneus diadematus) spins an circular orb web in the back garden of a south London home, on 15th September 2023, in London, England.

Spider silk is the toughest known fibre, stronger, weight for weight, than high-tensile steel and Kevlar

Ruskin Photos/Alamy

One of the things children of the late 21st century remark on, when looking back at people in the 2020s, is the clothes. What are they wearing, the kids ask. The issue isn’t so much the design and the peculiar fashion as the fabrics. Kids these days wear clothes made from silk – spider silk – from head to toe. They can’t imagine wearing garments that scuff and fray, that are heavy, ugly and vulnerable to dirt and acid, that exert a…

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