Green “tea”-shirts and more

A senior research fellow at a fashion school in London is taking the “green” thing to new levels.

Suzanne Lee, a student at the School of Fashion and Textiles, is turning tubs of sweetened green tea, microbes and yeast into fashionable clothing, according to Grist, an environmental news source.

Lee ferments the vats of all-natural ingredients to create fibers of bacterial cellulose, which she then molds and dries into jackets, dresses and T-shirts. She spruces them up with dyes such as indigo and beetroot, and the natural clothing can be tossed into a compost bin when it wears out.

The project, BioCouture, is a part of Europe’s growing Ecouterre trend, which focuses on creating high-fashion items out of disposable and green materials.