At least one scientist sincerely believes that making clothes out of molten rocks mined in space is the future of fashion. From a sustainability perspective, that’s complicated.

Have you ever looked out at the night sky and wondered if the materials for your next dress were floating through space on an asteroid?

Believe it or not, that’s a possibility. While many tech companies and designers are experimenting with materials found on the earth’s surface to create new clothes, others are looking deep under the earth’s crust — and beyond it, into space — for potential textile resources.

It all started with molten rock, which exists as an extremely hot liquid located under the earth’s surface that blasts out of volcanos before cooling and becoming hardened basaltic lava. According to Geology.com, basalt underlies more of the Earth’s surface than any other rock type — and amazingly enough, it can be used to make textiles. The pursuit of those textiles is what brought together NYC-based designer Tanu Vasu and Silicon Valley-based scientist Dr. John Roma Skok. The abundance of the rock has Vasu and Skok wondering if it could provide an alternative to over-reliance on scarcer textile resources.

Read the full article here on Fashionista.