When Ronni Anthony Johannesen was studying at Kolding Design School, he and his fellow design students wanted to work with hemp. At the time, they learned, very few were working with it, and it was hard to find manufacturers willing to work with the material.
— I got introduced to hemp by learning that there were 20,000 tons of hemp fibres that no one knew what to do with. So, we started trying to figure out how we can put discarded hemp into use that otherwise would have been waste, he says.
— While researching the material, I found out that many others were already looking into it, but mostly as a technical support material in interior. From there on, the main challenge and goal was to create an aesthetic material made of our hemp that can be used for fashion accessories, such as shoes.
What was initially a research collaboration initiated by the Kvadrat Innovation Lab, in 2018, is now Hemp Bio, a startup that is now majority-owned by Kvadrat. As of last fall, Johannesen and his colleagues have developed a scalable production and have finalised a new material called Vireo.
— Made primarily from hemp, it offers opportunities for fashion and design brands seeking an eco-conscious material, such as aesthetic and functional excellence and creative freedom without the same environmental impact of, for example, leather, Johannesen explains. The material in itself has natural aesthetics with the fibre in focus and is locally sourced. We use a type of hemp that is very fast-growing and makes excellent seeds. It is sown in April and is ready for harvest in August. Once the hemp has been grown, harvested, and carded in France, it is sent to Italy to be dyed and treated with the partly bio-based polyurethane coating.
What have been the main challenges when developing the brand?
— The manufacturing part, to find the right combination of the material, but also making sure that the production is scalable and commercial, and that we can supply thousands of metres.
What are the pros and cons of hemp?
— Vireo is made with more than 70% hemp fibres and is topped by this partly bio-based anti-scratch layer of polyurethane. Thanks to this top layer, it offers a tactile patina, that can be coloured, patterned, and embossed in virtually infinite ways. One of the downsides is that we are not using processed textile fibres, to keep them as natural as possible. Therefore, it is a bit stiff and behaves differently from what we are used to, compared to textiles or leather.
What’s the reason why we see this surge in the use of hemp in the design sector?
— In my opinion, it is because we haven’t seen what the material is capable of in the sector. We now see a hemp material that is more customisable. However, it is still stigmatising to use hemp — many only see it as something you smoke, not wear.
What’s required to continue this rise?
— Mostly it is a question about changing the general mindset about textiles and materials. Our clients also have to get used to material-driven design.
— We will see more of it in the future, not only as a support material but as a design choice considering its natural aesthetics. We will see it be used more and more for fashion and accessories, but the plan is to grow in the design industry. In, say, three years, we will hopefully see hemp being used in many industries and a broadened knowledge of how hemp can be used as an alternative for other fibres, such as leather.
Can it enable the transition to a regenerative design sector?
— Yes. It’s one of the only fibre crops at the moment that is suitable for crop rotation — when you plant different crops sequentially on the plot of land to improve soil health — so it helps farmers clean their fields in between harvests.
Also: This June sees the unveiling of Hemp Bio’s partnership with Marimekko
Swedish interior designer and architect Anna von Schewen just launched Parallel Lines, a line of art-inspired sound-absorbing wall panels, for Okko. The central part consists of a cellulose pulp of recycled paper and PET fibres, covered with a surface layer of hemp. The largest part of the hemp comes from Finland, where it is pressed to various thicknesses, and it’s 100% recyclable, hypoallergenic, and has a negative carbon footprint. This hasn’t affected the functionality; all hemp acoustic panels belong to the best sound absorption class, class A.
— The collection started as an exhibition at the House of Gärsnäs in Stockholm, von Schewen says. The exhibited objects were inspired by a strange variety of things I have encountered recently like ancient pillars as well as the lines in everyday notebooks. By translating these parallel, straight lines into sharp cuts in a sheet of watercolour paper and then braiding the fringes, the two-dimensional surface was transformed into a light and airy relief.
— Okko came to see my exhibition and following discussions, we decided to test this technique in hemp, which is a material I haven’t used before. The thin sheet of hemp has similar properties to paper which made the translation quite natural.
Will you continue to work with it?
— The sustainability of hemp as a fast-growing plant makes it very interesting and as it can be refined into many different items like paper, rope, and textile — and also for nutrition — it would be interesting to use it in other design applications.
For SS24, conscious contemporary fashion brand Maska presents a knitwear line using a mix of long staple pima cotton with organic hemp.
— We used hemp to achieve pieces that are cooling, durable, and with a gracious drape and lustre, founder Maria Svensson explains.
— There is hardly any natural fibre we haven’t worked with since it is a true passion of mine to explore all the various properties of the fibres of the world. I first worked with hemp when I did a project with Freitag around 2010. Their analysis had come to the conclusion that hemp was the most sustainable fibre in the world. It grows like a weed with only natural irrigation and without pesticides. Therefore they planned to make a garment collection using only hemp. However, pure hemp on its own is not appropriate for knitwear since it is almost completely inelastic and does not recover from stretch. Furthermore, in this project, no fibre was allowed to come from further away than a certain distance from Zürich. This was a dilemma as well because, at least then, the European hemp fibres were not of good quality. So, for these two reasons, the knitwear part of the project did not work out.
— I, however, learnt a lot about hemp. I found trouser fabrics from Hemp Fortex (also a supplier of Patagonia) and was very interested in trying them. We made both jeans in organic cotton/hemp and wide, flowy trousers in Tencel/hemp. I loved both these fabrics as the hemp really got to show its best sides; it added strength, drape, and a beautiful linen-like texture and the lack of elasticity was not a problem.
”Their analysis had come to the conclusion that hemp was the most sustainable fibre in the world”
What are the pros and cons of it?
— It has the look and properties of linen but with a better sustainability score. It is also more resistant to abrasion and more durable than linen. The availability is limited, though, and the best weavers, spinners, and growers are in China. The minimums are very high. And, as mentioned, it is also one of the very least elastic fibres of all-natural fibres. If used in trousers they need to be wide. All in all, on its own, it really is not suitable for knitwear and should never be worn tight in any way.
Will you continue to work with it?
— Definitely! We love hemp. Fabrics with drapes are essential to MASKA and it is an exciting and sustainable fibre. We have a new hemp/organic cotton coming up for SS25 in the trouser collection. It also looks fantastic when blended with silk and becomes an optimal blouse and dress fabric. As soon as we reach the minimums, we will have even more of it in the collection.
And will we see even more of it in the industry?
— I’m sure we will, but it will take time. It is still a rare find on the market, Svensson concludes.
In a new collaboration, architecture firm Snøhetta and lighting manufacturer ateljé Lyktan have teamed up to rework the latter’s 1970s Supertube design, resulting in the new Superdupertube. Several years ago, the two joined forces with the objective of exploring materials for a locally sourced solution with a smaller ecological footprint usable in production. They ended up with hemp being the optimal choice with its robust fibres and minimal environmental impact, reducing CO2 emissions by over 50% compared to traditional aluminium variants.
Superdupertube uses an organic material mix — a PLA (Polylactic Acid) material derived from sugarcane, reinforced with hemp fibres — to create a biodegradable polymer free from fossil oil or gas. This makes it industrially compostable as well as meets the functional needs. The hemp material’s inherent colour also means that each lamp’s colour will vary with different hemp crops, which also influences the colour temperature of light.
Recognising that 70-80% of a luminaire’s climate impact occurs during the user phase, Snøhetta and ateljé Lyktan emphasised efficiency and incorporated smart lighting systems to reduce energy consumption and expand its lifetime. They’ve also aimed to optimise easy assembly and disassembly by enabling components to slide in place without glues and minimal use of screws, to make it possible to easily replace parts, repair malfunctions, and update lighting technologies in the future.
In our recent insights piece, Caroline Till, co-founder of the futures research agency FranklinTill, shared what it takes to further increase the use of hemp.
— We need to more broadly communicate the potential of regenerative materials like hemp, information such as the high yield in terms of the surface area of growing, the natural resistance to pesticides, and low water requirements. Also, the way it can enrich the soil. So it’s also about more education, which needs to start from an early stage with design and textile training. The piece that you’re often not taught in textiles education is the farming aspect, how our textile raw materials are being grown, where and by whom. We’ve got to make sure that we’re including that full life cycle in materials education again.
You’ve also addressed that the next step after circular materials is the regenerative ones. What are the keys to seeing it growing?
— The problem is that within the climate emergency design agenda, we have these zeitgeist words. We have to be careful that they don’t just become words that don’t mean anything, Till says. She continues:
— I feel really strongly about regenerative in terms of design, we need a collective definition to align with. We tried to do it with our recent Future Materials Library, called Regenerative? (exhibited at the Heimtextil trade fair in Frankfurt in January). We defined nine principles, making a mini-manifesto for what is regenerative design and therefore, what is a regenerative material. It’s not saying that every material has to cover all of those nine principles but we have to put a stake in the ground and say that we acknowledge it holistically and this is the full picture of regeneration. Within a company, you might be focused on one, two, or three of those areas, while acknowledging that there are still other areas to consider.
— One thing is the definition and understanding around it. Because I think the design industry is having a bit of a crisis in terms of its identity. The dominant methodology was human-centred design and suddenly, we had to ask ourselves, ’Where’s the planet in that conversation?’ Now we’re looking for this new methodology that unites. It’s about coexistence — people and planet, or interconnectedness — and regeneration is a really important part of that, Till states.
