Spinach dresses and candy chairs

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On 'The Sauce by InFlavour' podcast, we recently interviewed renowned food artist and chef Omar Sartawi. One of the things he’s known for is creating materials for use in design and fashion, that are made from food products and (in theory at least) completely edible. 

We particularly love his luxury handbags made from orange peel and aubergine leather. 

And Sartawi isn’t the only artist experimenting with food products in fashion – so we thought we’d take a (slightly surreal) trip into the world of edible design. 

Edible design is sparking conversations about sustainability

In 2021, an edible dress won the Technology Innovation Award during China’s Graduate Fashion Week. 

Designed by then 23-year-old student Tang Danyang, the dress was made from fibre taken from the spinach plant. And the intention behind it was all about sustainability. 

"With the improvement of living standards, I found that people choose to throw away some fruits and vegetables that were wilted or not so fresh," Danyang told China Daily. "I thought it was quite wasteful. So I wondered whether I could try to make a dress from the fibre of vegetables and fruits, as I found that the fibre of some vegetables and fruits is very similar to the fibre used to make clothes.” 

Dutch designer Pieter Brenner’s ‘Sugarchair’ has also won awards. The chair is made from 30 kilos of sugar, formed into a moldable material using starch and water, and shaped into a piece of rainbow-coloured furniture that’s 100% edible.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Brenner said “I opted to use sugar because it is one of the most versatile, durable and sustainable food products.”

The chairs sell for €18,500 apiece. And like the spinach dress, it’s got a sustainability slant: “The interesting thing about sugar as a design material is that it has little impact on the environment in that it’s biodegradable. So, for example, the sugar chair can be eaten or melted when no longer useful or desired,” Brenner added.

Not all food design is made to be eaten

The ability to be eaten isn’t the only thing that gives food-based design materials good sustainability credentials.

Daniel Widrig (Architect and Designer) wasn’t particularly interested in working with food, but he did want to find materials that are affordable, non-toxic, and easily available in large volumes. And that’s what led him to create the degenerate chair – 3D printed using a blend of sake (rice wine), plaster of Paris, and food additive maltodextrin. 

The chair is made up of approximately 3 billion three-dimensions pixels, and brought to life through a custom 3D printing process that binds together micro-layers of the sake blend. The sculpting techniques used to create this physical product are usually reserved for movies and computer games; and the layer-by-layer approach means that Widrig can work around the typical constraints of 3D printing. 

New ways of thinking about a serious problem

Speaking on the podcast, Sartawi said he hopes his work will be known for challenging the status quo – and enabling people to think about problems like sustainability in new, innovative ways. 

“I don’t really believe I’m there to give a solution for a problem,” he said, “I think I’m there to ask a question and show a different thing – and I think this is what an artist does.”

And while edible fashion and design so far might not be viable at scale and on a retail level, it does exactly that: it asks questions, shows new possibilities, and encourages us to think outside the realms of what’s currently ‘the done thing’. 

Join the conversation 

Do you want to eat your chair? We’d love to know what you think about edible design and food art.

Mark your calendars for our next newsletter on 26 July 2024. Is there anything specific you'd like to see covered? We'd love to hear from you! Click here to share your suggestions.

Until next week,

Aravind Kanniah,
Exhibition Director

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