Natural materials are often cast as the nostalgic choice. We think that’s a misconception.
When you ask people to picture an innovative material,most will imagine something engineered in a lab. Ask them to picture wool, linen or oak and they’ll most likely think of something traditional – beautifully made, certainly, but hardly the future.
That’s because people have been designing with wool, cotton, flax, silk, leather and wood for thousands of years. It’s something that we have become so used to that we consider it old fashioned. Synthetics, on the other hand, have been around for barely a century, and so feel newer, more contemporary. However, at Only Natural we know that modern doesn’t necessarily mean better. And when it comes to petroleum-based synthetics and a host of other so-called innovative materials, it’s only now that we’re starting to understand their negative side effects.
Performance, refined over millennia
Many of the qualities laboratories work hard to engineer already exist in nature. Wool regulates temperature, resists odour and is naturally flame resistant. Linen and hemp are strong and breathable and soften with every wash. Wood stores carbon for as long as the piece it becomes is in use. These aren’t nostalgic qualities. They’re performance qualities.
Think about what happens next
Where natural materials truly pull ahead of petroleum-based synthetics and man-made fibres is at the end of a product’s life. Synthetics shed microplastics when they are washed, which end up in our streams, rivers and oceans – where they can remain for centuries. In turn, these microplastics are eaten by fish which in turn are consumed by predators, including humans. It’s not a healthy situation. In contrast, a piece made entirely from natural materials can be repaired, reused, recycled and, at the very end, returned to nature. It’s a life cycle that makes sense.
However, this isn’t about rejecting innovation. Some of the most exciting work we see – from algae-based materials to hemp composites – is happening where natural materials meet new thinking. The future isn’t nature versus technology. It’s technology learning from nature.
Why this matters to us
Every year, students entering the Only Natural Student Design Competition prove the point that choosing natural is as relevant today as it has always been – in fact, even more so.Across fashion and home, they take materials people think they already know and do something unexpected with them. They aren’t treating natural materials as a worthy alternative – they’re treating them as the most interesting materials on the table.
The question isn’t whether natural materials have a place in the future of design. It’s how long it will take the rest of the industry to catch up. You can do your bit by choosing natural.
