Living Bacterial Cellulose Fabrics: Growing and Dyeing Textiles with Microbes

In fashion and product design, we usually think of textiles as something woven, printed, and dyed through energy-intensive industrial processes. But what happens when fabric can grow itself – and even color itself – using living organisms instead of petrochemicals?

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are experimenting with exactly that: using living bacteria that grow, weave, and dye their own fabrics in every color of the rainbow. Their goal is to replace chemical-based textile production with a biological process that uses microbes instead of oil, plastic, or synthetic dyes.

At the core of the project is bacterial cellulose – a fibrous network produced by microbes during fermentation. When certain bacteria grow in a nutrient-rich liquid, they spin long cellulose fibers that can be harvested, cleaned, and dried into flexible sheets that behave like fabric. For this work, the team uses Komagataeibacter xylinus, a bacterium known for producing strong cellulose structures.

To add color, the researchers introduce a second group of bacteria that naturally produce pigments from two families:

• Violaceins – generating tones from green to deep purple

• Carotenoids – creating colors from yellow to orange and red

In other words, the structure and the color of the textile are both created biologically.

Two cultures bacterial cellulose, one fabric

At first, the KAIST team tried to grow the bacterial cellulose fabric by living bacteria and the pigment-producing bacteria in the same container. It didn’t work. The microbes competed with each other: sometimes the cellulose layer failed to form; other times the colors were too weak.

To solve this, they developed two different culture strategies:

1. Delayed co-culture for cool colors

For blue, green, and purple tones, they used a delayed co-culture method:

1. First, the cellulose bacteria grow and start forming their network.

2. Only after the structure begins to appear are the pigment-producing bacteria added.

This timing lets both species thrive without blocking each other, and the pigment diffuses into the still-living cellulose sheet.

2. Sequential culture for warm colors

For red, orange, and yellow, the team uses a sequential method:

1. The cellulose sheet is grown first, then removed and cleaned.

2. It is then placed in a fresh container with pigment-producing bacteria, which naturally dye the material as it soaks in the colored compounds.

Using these two approaches, the researchers were able to grow bacterial-cellulose textiles in seven shades: purple, navy, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red – essentially a biological rainbow built directly into the fabric.

Performance, durability, and impact

Once the rainbow sheets were ready, the team tested how stable the colors were. The fabrics were:

• washed,

• bleached,

• heated,

• and exposed to acidic and alkaline solutions.

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Most colors remained stable, and those made with violacein pigments were especially robust – in some cases more resistant to washing than common synthetic dyes.

Each sample is grown in a lab container where bacteria float in liquid culture, feed on nutrients, and slowly build up a cellulose mat at the surface. This mat can be harvested and air-dried into thin, flexible sheets. The entire workflow relies on living organisms instead of industrial machinery and toxic dye baths.

From a design and sustainability perspective, the implications are huge:

• No need for petrochemical-based dyes

• Potentially less water pollution

• Less textile waste, since color is integrated into the material itself

The project is still in the research phase. Production is slower and more expensive than conventional textile manufacturing, and the researchers estimate at least five years before this technique could scale industrially. Even so, it offers a glimpse of a future where materials are grown, not manufactured – and where biology becomes a key design tool for fashion, interiors, and product design.

Written by Otávio Santiago, a visual designer exploring the intersection of design, technology, and material innovation. From Berlin and Lisbon, he follows how emerging tools – from microbes to machine learning – are reshaping visual culture and sustainable practice.