Fashion's favorite Miroslava Duma launches FTL bringing cutting -edge technologies and sustainable innovation with a goal of transforming fashion industry. Fashion Tech Lab (FTL) will focus on science, biotech, nanotechnology, wearable electronics and high performance fibres and fabrics. “Millennials and Gen Z, those are the ones who demand sustainability in every single area of their lives,” Duma told BoF. “The fashion and apparel industry is the second-largest polluter in the world… I was shocked [when I found out] and started to think what we could actually do about it,” she continued. “It really had a huge impact on me. And having two kids at home, I was also looking at what I was doing, and I thought: Am I really helping anyone? Am I really making a change?”
Mira's goal is to connect technologies with the fashion industry. FTL includes an experimental lab, which develops the technology and applies it to products or garments. According to Mira it is an accelerator and an experimental laboratory, where companies can receive funding, meet with industry insiders and experiment with the latest technologies create innovative and sustainable fashion.
The secured $50 million to invest in sustainable companies like Diamond Foundry and Orange Fiber. Think of man-made diamonds and fabrics made from orange peelings. FTL has also invested in a start-up based in San Francisco exploring the production of lab-growth leathers.
Orange Fiber announced a capsule collaboration with Italian fashion house Ferragamo made with fabric from repurposed orange.
FTL is a privately-owned company that generates funding from private and institutional investors. People like fashion-tech entrepreneur Carmen Busquets, fashion designer and CFDA chairwoman Diane Von Furstenberg and Livia Firth, eco-fashion activist and founder of EcoAge on its advisory board.
This is an exciting new twist in the fashion industry with one goal and that is to make the world a better place for now and our future. Will this new approach to fashion industry take off? We'll just have to wait and see.
"It is time for me to move on”