Styling science: Our 8 favourite fashion yarns of 2024

From the delicate needles which styled garments 40,000 years ago, to the 90 million tonnes of clothes currently discarded each year, fashion has left its mark on the planet – and on us.

Here are 8 things we learned this year about fashion’s history – and future.

When did fashion begin? The answer is like finding a needle in a haystack

What’s the difference between wearing clothing for protection or  fashion? At what point did humans start thinking about the social value of their garments? When did clothing become a part of culture as opposed to protection from the elements?

According to Dr Ian Gilligan, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney, the answer lies with needles with eyes in them – and the sewing of more delicate structures.

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Samuel Pepys’ fashion plates: Instagram for the 17th century

Samuel Pepys is famous for keeping an extremely detailed diary from 1660 to 1669, giving historians a fascinating view into middle-class life in 17th Century England.

But he was also a lifetime admirer of fashion and clothes.

His private library, which has been stored at the University of Cambridge, UK, for the past 300 years, has a large collection of elaborate French fashion plates.

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Glitter banned by EU with calls for Australia to follow

Around the world, glitter elevates fashion, makeup, crafts and performance. 

However, glitter is a microplastic (small plastic pieces less than 5 mm long) that is usually coated with a thin layer of metal. Like other microplastics, glitter ends up in waterways and oceans, posing detrimental threats to aquatic ecosystems.

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Rich cities, poor fashion: the local answers to textile waste

Wealthy cities are the nexus of a lot of our fashion and textile industries.

But how good are they at dealing with waste – and what mechanisms could they use to be better?

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Ocean camouflage expert helps design extreme weather fabric

Engineers inspired by marine creatures have made a fabric that adjusts to body heat and keeps you at a temperature of your choosing. Better yet, it is breathable and washable.

The US-based team say their fabric could be used in athletic apparel, food packaging, infrared camouflage, soft robotics and biomedical sensing.

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Old clothes and carpet could make concrete stronger

If they’re past re-using, textiles are difficult to recycle – with individual fabrics needing different conditions. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of textiles end up in Australian landfill every year.

A better destination, according to some engineers, might be concrete.

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New old top: company announces nylon shirt recycled with enzymes

An Australian startup has developed samples of a commercial garment made out of recycled nylon.

The nylon in the top has mostly (90%) been made by recycling nylon with enzymes.

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Extremely cool clothes: passive cooling textiles

High-tech textiles might be a smart way to reduce the toll on humans in heating cities. Some, based on lotus leaves, might even repel rain.

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