Looking to the Future About

Presently, most sports apparel items available on the market are produced using synthetic polymers such as polyester or nylon.

Many of these materials are made from petroleum, a resource created over hundreds of millions of years as organic matter such as plankton and algae is exposed to high pressure and heat underground. In the last few hundred years, humans have removed vast quantities of petroleum from the ground for consumption, causing various pressing environmental issues, including sudden changes in weather and temperature patterns due to the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, and increasing levels of air and sea pollution.

Market costs for many products which use petroleum-derived materials do not take into account the environmental and social costs of their use. The world is presently full of petroleum products that are cheap and easy to produce.

We therefore believe it is the duty of this generation to shift away from a short-term, consumerist economic model based on the use of petroleum resources, and to move towards a sustainable, long-term economic model based on the use of renewable and recyclable resources.

Through a joint research and development initiative between Goldwin and Spiber, we are striving to re-evaluate the relationship between nature and mankind. By balancing functionality with environmental considerations, and examining the role of products and the economy, we hope to create sports apparel that can support a lifestyle in harmony with nature. We believe we can thereby contribute significantly to the development of a sustainable world. This belief drives our continued effort towards this goal.

Goldwin and Spiber’s collaboration began in 2015, sparked by a shared passion for addressing global-scale environmental problems. The joint research and development initiative began with a focus on replicating spider silk, a natural structural protein material, to use in apparel products. One of the biggest challenges in utilizing fibroin—the protein found in natural spider silk—for an application such as the outer shell layer of the MOON PARKA®, launched in October 2015, is that natural spider silk exhibits a property called ‘supercontraction.’

For example, the extremely tough dragline silk spiders use as their lifeline contracts up to ~50% in length when exposed to water.

The protein material which Spiber initially developed, QMONOS (based on the Japanese word for spider web, kumonosu), comes from fibroin proteins found in dragline silk, and thus inherited this supercontraction property. As we considered how to prepare our materials for use in end products, we concluded it would be difficult to reduce this water-induced supercontraction effect to meet Goldwin’s exacting quality standards.

We therefore began from scratch, starting with fresh analysis of genes involved in natural fibroin production. We could thereby isolate and remove the amino acid layout responsible for the supercontraction effect.

We also implemented further modifications to the amino acid sequence, resulting in drastic increases in microbial productivity. Repeating this molecular optimization—mimicking natural evolution—while passing the improved materials through our proprietary spinning, weaving, and processing technologies, created a new protein textile material capable of maintaining its dimensions when wet. The new material used in the jacket’s shell layer has come a long way from the initial synthetic proteins based on natural spider silk. New structural proteins created in this way allow for design of material features according to application, and materials produced can have a wide variety of characteristics. We therefore decided to change the name for the structural protein material developed by Spiber from QMONOS, symbolizing the function and organism from which it was derived, to Brewed Protein™, a higher level concept representing the characteristics of the manufacturing process of fermentation by microorganisms.

The major characteristic of the structural protein Brewed Protein™ is that it does not rely on petroleum or other fossil resources as ingredients. It is produced through fermentation of plant-derived sugars (glucose and sucrose), using microorganisms. With needs for microplastic-free and animal-free products in the apparel sector, lightweight products in the transportation sector, and artificial hair and medical products, Brewed Protein materials, made with non-petroleum derived ingredients, show great potential for a wide variety of uses. It is considered a key next-generation material that will contribute to the development of a sustainable society.

At Spiber, we begin by designing genes that code for the desired structural proteins (①). We introduce those genes into microorganisms engineered for high-level production of the protein(②). Raw materials such as sugars and minerals provide energy and nutrients for the microorganisms to produce proteins. In the Brewed Protein™ production process, these raw materials are prepared in large tanks, where microorganisms grow and multiply, and proteins are produced at high efficiency via fermentation (③). After fermentation comes the purification process, to separate target proteins from the microorganisms (④). Purified proteins are then dried and the resulting powder is processed into fibers, films and other forms (⑤).

Released by The North Face in August 2019, the Planetary Equilibrium Tee was the first item sold featuring Spiber’s revolutionary new Brewed Protein™ materials.

The T-shirt’s name refers to the balance of living matter in the earth’s biosphere, and is a reminder of Spiber’s research and development mission—addressing global environmental issues. The t-shirt features a 82.5 to 17.5 blend of plant-based cellulose (cotton) and Spiber’s microbially-produced protein materials (Brewed Protein™). This symbolizes the proportion of plant to microbial life found on Earth, and demonstrates the potential for an animal-free manufacturing process. As far as possible, we produce resources from primary producers, that is, plants and energy-efficient microorganisms, to be compatible with the natural balance. We consider this a part of our Vision.

In November 2020, we introduced The Sweater, a garment made from a blend of wool and Brewed Protein™, under our original Goldwin brand.

Until now, humans have developed sweaters through technology and wisdom, such that they are now indispensable in winter. Yet its basic design has remained largely unchanged since the first sweater, a millennium ago. That it has become part of the culture and history of people worldwide is due to the versatile and adaptable animal fibers it can made from, and the knits that bring out the full potential of those fibers. The Sweater by Goldwin weaves a contemplation of the sweater’s origin with an application of future-facing technology.

It is only available in black, that contains all colors within itself. The Sweater knits together the distant past and the future in a single piece of black apparel. This single black item represents both the past and the future.