14 July 2022 – By Promostyl

SLOW DEVORED – LE TEXTILE EN ALLIANCE AVEC LE VIVANT

It was in 2018, after working for 8 years alongside Tzuri Gueta that Tony Jouanneau founded the Sumbiosis studio in Paris. This studio is intended to reorient textile finishing by proposing innovative and environmentally compatible creative hypotheses. Tony Jouanneau combines his mastery of textile techniques with the expertise of biologists in order to set up, with the help of the living, new methods of textile treatment.

He nudge the reflection even further in his Slow devored project, where insects selected with the help of entomologists literally eat the textile. The devored textile is a know-how intended to chemically destroy certain fibers of a fabric to reveal its transparency. Slow Devored is designed as an alternative and natural practice to this harmful finishing process. Following the design of a "cabinet to devour", a keratophagous insect decomposer of fiber slowly ennobles the fabric.

On the advice of the OPIE (Office pour la Protection des Insectes et leur Environnement), the Sumbiosis workshop has chosen the Peruvian beetle. Insects then take on the status of artisans, in a cycle of collaboration with the living. At the beginning of the chain, the Bombyx Mori will produce the tissue and, at the end of the chain, the beetle larvae will devour it, before being put back into the rearing and recreating larvae.

This project was made possible thanks to the collaboration of entomologists. But also with the help of many partners, notably: the IFM, Première Vision, the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès and the ENSCI les ateliers. The first Slow Devored results allow us to hope for high quality ennobled pieces, both rare and unique.