texfash.com: It's been a while since we had first heard of Keel Labs and Kelsun, but it's only now that we finally see Kelsun for real. Please tell us what happened in the interregnum. From concept to trials to the real product -- how did things play out?
Tessa Callaghan: We are very proud of the progress we have made since the inception of Keel Labs, now integrating Kelsun into commercial mills and releasing the first retail product with Outerknown. Kelsun is a truly novel fibre, introducing a new material to compete with industries in place for centuries is a serious endeavour, and not an easy one at that. From developing our technology, to testing at a variety of scales with brands, to integrating throughout a global supply chain, there has been a great deal of work that has gone into getting to this point.
Something of this sort will obviously come with its own set of unique challenges. Please tell us what it was like. And importantly, how did you surmount them?
Tessa Callaghan: In the early days, our biggest hurdle was overcoming the technical challenges of creating a fibre that performed to the strength, durability, and hand-feels required by apparel and functional textile products. We have overcome those technical challenges at the design level through a great deal of development work, testing iteration, and above all bringing on strong team members with expertise in each area of the fibre’s production.
But then, let's go back to the beginning of it all. How did you two get together? Was it a meeting of ideas? And what were the initial ideas like? Then again, it often happens that one starts with one set of ideas, and what turns out in the end may well be very different. Was it so with you, or is the final product exactly as you had envisaged when you started?
Tessa Callaghan: We met as design students seeking a way to tackle the issue of waste and pollution in the fashion industry. Having an in-depth experience of both product and supply chain functionality, it was clear an impactful solution would have to start at the foundational level, fibres.
By creating a diverse set of parameters we knew had to either stay—like accessibility, manufacturing systems, and functionality—along with those that had to change like land and chemical use. Therefore, what we needed to find was a resource that was rapidly renewable and abundant. After a great deal of research and trial and error, we found that seaweeds hit on all our criteria, and have since then become the building block of our work at Keel Labs.
