Few art forms in the world are as enduring as that of beadwork. In ancient times, people fashioned them from natural materials like seashells, stone and wood, to be strung into jewellery or sewn into textiles. However, most beads today are made from petroleum plastics and resins. Although they are small in size, their social and environmental impact is massive. With 20 billion embellished garments produced annually—and many discarded after just a few uses—hundreds of billions of non-recyclable beads end up in landfills every year.
Seeing an opportunity for change, designer Aradhita Parasrampuria founded Cellsense with the goal of developing a scalable and sustainable alternative. The start-up now transforms algae and cellulose into beautiful and durable bio-embellishments for use in fashion and cosmetics. The entire range is also non-toxic: Cellsense works with bacteria to produce its vibrant colours and has even developed embellishments with bioluminescence. On top of this, their patent pending technology automates and streamlines the production of beaded fabric, allowing them to save time, labour and energy.
As a winner of the Redesign Everything Challenge, Aradhita is currently taking part in an acceleration programme to take Cellsense to the next level. Here, she tells us more about the materials they’re testing, the communities they work with, and the markets they’re already breaking into.
Aradhita wearing a necklace with Cellsense bio-embellishments, and showing samples of woven panels. Photo: Anisa Xhomaqi.
Hi Aradhita! Can you describe your project for us? How did the idea first come about?
Sure! I’m Aradhita and I’m the founder and director of Cellsense. I started working in the fashion industry as an embellishment designer and for a long time I was trying really hard to source sustainable embellishments.
The problem is that 20% of all clothing is embellished, and right now there is no way to separate embellishments from textiles. So the entire garment usually ends up in landfill, after being worn only five times on average, for special occasions like weddings or New Year’s Eve.
Unfortunately there was no solution on the market, despite significant demand. That’s when I started working in a lab and picked up some material science skills. I first worked with algae to make an embellishment, but I had some issues with consistent colour retention. So I supplemented algae with cellulose which helped me create a durable and colour-stable material. Since I was still working for the fashion industry I was able to bring the prototype back to designers, get feedback, improve it, and come up with a final product that’s biodegradable and scalable.
“The problem is that 20% of all clothing is embellished, and right now there is no way to separate embellishments from textiles.”
Have you learned anything surprising from working with these organisms?
Well, one thing we found is that we can engineer bacteria to produce vibrant colours. So if you see our colour chart, you can see we’ve come up with 23 really vivid colourways. We also found a way to engineer bioluminescence — and that is something you can’t achieve with the traditional thermoplastics. Furthermore, we’ve used the biopolymer’s unique ability to set at room temperature to automate the manufacturing of beaded mesh panels. This means we can replace six hours of exploitative manual labour with only 20 minutes of automation. So I have been very amazed to see how these organisms can not only replace, but also exceed what we currently have in the market.
Cellsense bio-embellishments come in a wide range of colours. Photo: Cellsense.
This seems like a highly collaborative project. Who are the key members of your team?
It’s a small but mighty team, in which I work as a designer and also as a material scientist. We have some material science advisors as well as a marketing specialist who has been really helpful in the positioning of our brand. We see this as a really important role because we believe that in order to make an impact, we need to sell to fast fashion as much as we need to sell to luxury fashion.
Then there’s Stefan Colton, who is my partner and he’s been really instrumental for Cellsense. He’s a mechanical engineer with a background in scaling clean energy. So, he’s been able to help us automate a lot of our processes, and scale has always been something that’s very important to us. With his help we’ve been able to build the machinery that we need to make beads not only in their hundreds but in several thousands.
Can you tell us more about how your embellishments are made?
Yes, so when we started, we were very aware of the environmental impact of microplastics and the embellishment industry. But we were also concerned about the social and human impact, which is sometimes lost in these kinds of conversations.
To address that we went to India. We went back to my hometown in Gujarat and I worked in a sweatshop for three months. I spoke with a lot of craftspeople, learning from them and understanding their experience firsthand, which was instrumental to the process. We realised that most of them worked 17 hours a day making embellished products, and were getting paid less than a dollar for it. Many lost their eyesight after four to five years because of the nature of the work or struggle with severe carpal tunnel in their hands. That’s why when it came to scaling up our embellishments, we developed some automation features that can potentially help people with the repetitive manual labour and also lowers the industry’s footprint. For us, that’s an important part of the story.
“We were very aware of the environmental impact of microplastics and the embellishment industry. But we were also concerned about the social and human impact.”
Bioluminescence is possible thanks to bacterial engineering. Photo: Cellsense.
How else are they different from conventional plastic beads?
So the Cellsense bio-embellishments can be moulded into a range of forms. The sizes range from 0.2 millimetres to 12 millimetres and range in opacities. When I was working in the fashion industry, I noticed transparency and iridescence were big selling points for designers and so we’ve tried to integrate both of those features. Another point of feedback that we’ve received from our customers is that the material is very lightweight, which makes them perfect for use in statement jewellery. That’s something they’ve been pleasantly surprised by.
What kind of response have you received from other players in the industry?
The response so far has been positive. For instance, before we even commercialised we already had inbound requests from about 20 brands who wanted to purchase our product. From that list, we chose three companies whose values aligned the closest with us. They became our pilot projects. It’s been really interesting, as a few of the brands that we’ve spoken to like Roma Narsinghani or Mara Hoffman say they haven’t used any embellishments at all for the past ten years because there are no sustainable options available. So, understanding the problems from them and then also seeing their response to the solution has been very validating.
What is the next step or goal that you are working towards now?
We know the product we have is viable and we have shown initial prototypes of our manufacturing systems, but now we’re looking for support to be able to improve the design. We also want to set up a pilot plan, so we can make our product both cost-competitive and widely available.
Aradhita and Stefan with samples of Cellsense woven panels. Photo: Anisa Xhomaqi.
ARE YOU ALSO LOOKING FOR NEW COLLABORATORS?
We’re always looking for more brands to collaborate with. So, if any fashion, interior, beauty brands are interested in working with us, we would love to have a conversation. We’re also interested in support around fundraising and for more people to join the team, so if there are any polymer scientists or electrical engineers who are interested in what we do — we would love to hear from them.
“Sustainable solutions are not just ‘lesser’ or more inconvenient versions to plastics, but they can actually enhance design possibilities.”
Lastly, what is the message you’d like people to take away from your story?
Sustainable solutions are not just ‘lesser’ or more inconvenient versions to plastics, but they can actually enhance design possibilities. New materials don’t have to limit your life or limit the future; they can also be beautiful and better than what we already have.
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This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Interview by Natasha Berting and Chieri Higa.