![]() ![]() Given the inevitable rise in global population and the associated expansion in wearables consumption over the next 30–50 years ( Franklin, 2018), there is an urgent need to reduce the environmental impact associated with the production of wearable fabrics across product life cycles ( Le Quéré et al., 2009 Myers, 2014). The way that wearable materials are currently designed and produced is not sustainable ( Carr and Gibson, 2016). We close by providing some speculative examples stemming from current activities in our laboratories. It suggests that an objective-focused research program utilizing a cross-disciplinary toolbox of top-down and bottom-up techniques is required. We outline herein a template for a working framework for a spider silk biomimetics program that can inform designers and biological researchers alike. There are nonetheless major challenges associated, including recovering the original mechanical performance within the fibers developed, scaling up production, keeping the production costs of the silk building blocks to a minimum, elucidating, and understanding the different silk genome sequences, and creating precision artificial spinning processes. Research focused on the biomimetic potential of spider silks with an eye on the development of smart wearable fibers is accordingly a potentially lucrative area of research. Moreover, spiders can tune their silk properties as their ecological circumstances demand it. ![]() Natural fibers such as spider silk are produced using proteins in a water solvent, yet they have many superior qualities to synthetic fibers. With the use of wearables worldwide set to increase exponentially, more environmentally friendly fibers are sought. ![]() These have negative effects on the natural environment as a consequence of the manufacturing process, insurmountable waste production, and persistence of the fibers in ecosystems. Wearable fabrics are predominantly produced from synthetic polymer fibers derived from petrochemicals. 3Faculty of Art and Design, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.2Complex Fluids Group, School of Chemical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.1The Spider Silk Research Lab, Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia. ![]()
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