ABSTRACT
Environmental and economic reasons inspire research of natural alternative textiles with the ability to make a difference in the environmental struggles. Entrepreneurs Bernadette Casey (Wellington) and Sally Shanks (Gisborne) of The Formary, conceptualised the idea of transforming rice straw waste and strong New Zealand (NZ) wool into yarn, proposing that the woven fabric would have the potential to help reduce China’s massive air pollution problem caused by burning waste straw after the rice harvest, and to use all of NZ’s mid 26 to 30 micron range wool (Casey, 2013). The blend development was facilitated through funding from Beef and Lamb and NZ government, research and design were carried out at Textile Design and Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, and yarn engineering was carried out at WoolYarns, 2011- 2014 (Crossley, 2012).
Innovations using waste fibre feedstock from other industries are important (Boztas, 2018). The world’s first woven wool rice straw upholstery fabric enhances different qualities of each fibre (fibre2fashion, 2015). The Formary presented it to Chinese clients during a WCC 2014 mayoral delegation to advance the commercialisation process (Burgess, 2014). Mibu® was launched at the 2015 World Exposition in Milan (Peters, 2015) and subsequently exhibited in Korea and France.
