- The world’s first T-Rex skin was unveiled today (April 2) in Amsterdam in the form of a bag
- The project is a collaboration between creative agency VML, Organoid Company, and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd.
- This follows last year’s announcement, which sparked much debate
I Jurassic Park movies are another step closer to reality – and it’s all thanks to a lab-grown T-Rex skin from creative agency VML.
A year after it was announced, VML, Organoid Company, and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd have been working together to collaborate on an ambitious project that sees the production of the world’s first dinosaur leather. The partnership is to demonstrate the power of materials and how they can contribute to sustainable fashion.
The first T-Rex leather product will come in the form of a comfortable bag designed by techwear label Enfin Levé, and will be on display at Amsterdam’s Art Zoo Museum today (April 2). It will also be displayed under the monstrous figure of a T-Rex skeleton acquired by the museum from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center to “symbolize the bridge(s) between ancient biology and futuristic luxury design”, as VML said in its announcement.
The article continues below
After the 6-week exhibition, the bag will go up for auction and will be sold to the highest bidder, but although VML shared that this is a collector’s item, the company added that the T-Rex skin will continue to be produced and will be available for sale by designers and brands.
The CEO of The Organoid Company, Thomas Mitchell, is one of the inventors of the world’s first dinosaur skin material, who shared, “This project shows how genome and protein engineering can create entirely new classes of organisms”. Meanwhile, the Global Chief Creative Officer, Innovation & CCO EMEA at VML also had the following:
“The surprising fact is that lab-grown skin has not yet confirmed the luxury world. Why? Because it sounds like imitation. We knew we had to do something very different. Not to replace, but something completely new”.
It’s one of the whacky tech projects in recent years that has us scratching our heads. What exactly is T-Rex skin, and what do the experts say?
He is involved in technology
The concept of this lab-grown T-Rex skin has been the subject of much debate and controversy since it was introduced last year. In fact, it is produced by obtaining the collagen sequence of a T-Rex skeleton and using processes such as computational biology and AI modeling.
According to VML, this allows scientists to “predict(ed) and reconstruct(ed) the remaining genetic information needed to create the perfect collagen framework”, and from there, the DNA is injected into the carrier cell, which is then grown using Lab-Grown Leather Ltd’s Advanced Tissue Engineering Platform.
For the purposes of reducing deforestation and production pollution, it is quite revolutionary, but the debate about whether it can be considered leather or not is still fierce. This is because the basis of skin is skin, and researchers have found T-Rex collagen only in bone, as Live Science reported at the time of the announcement last year. The publication also noted that academics in the field called the process of making lab-grown T-Rex skin ‘misleading’ and ‘mythical’.
We’ve reached out to VML for comment about the reversal, so we’ll update this story when we know more.
Follow TechRadar for Google news again add us as a favorite resource to get our expert news, reviews, and opinions in your feed. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course, you can also follow TechRadar YouTube again TikTok to get news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us WhatsApp again
