The concept of leather is turned on its head in a new project by Camilla Wordie. The food-obsessed designer and artist has created a series of textiles using nothing more than simple ingredients and a couple of inventive synthesising techniques, challenging the boundaries of textile design. Foods like quinoa, gingerbread, icing, chocolate buttons, liquorice, ham and tortillas have all been turned into thin sheets of fabric, presented as art but which are ultimately edible.
Experimenting with processes, Wordie found two techniques that worked particularly well. Given the varied properties of the foods she has worked with, some ingredients were inserted into a laser cutter used to carve out complex, weave-like patterns, while others were subjected to extremely high pressure and heat, melting and reforming the foods into fabrics. Edible Textiles is part of a larger body of work by the designer which brings food into the technical art and design sphere.

Recently we've seen a number of innovations in textiles and products made from unexpected materials, like the crab-shell based Crustic, or the woollen suitcases by Terracase, but this is the first time we've seen textiles that are actually edible.