Shoe designer pivots to seaweed
French designer Eugène Riconneaus has embarked on a new venture to make novel biomaterials from algae and seafood waste. His former experience as a shoe designer includes the creation of footwear from leather scraps. With ER Ocean Recherche, he has turned his attention to biomaterials made from marine biomass, sourced in the coastal town of La Rochelle.
The first two products he officially launched at ChangeNow (on now in Paris) are SeiShell, a coated leather-like material, and SeiYarn, a polysaccharide polymer. SeiYarn is produced like a manmade cellulosic, via solution spinning.
What began as experiments in a workshop during covid, transforming invasive seaweed and seafood waste from Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France, led Eugène Riconneaus to delve deeper into their potential to make new materials. His said that his research introduced him “to new microscopic allies, cyanobacteria, marine-based polymers and bio-pigments”. In the course of his research he discovered a vivid blue pigment derived from microalgae, which has since become a signature element in his artworks.
“The job of designers has changed. I now design in microns: to think big, we need to start extra small,” the designer said.
Read up on novel textiles and dyes made from seaweed in our feature, here.
Image courtesy of ER Ocean Recherche
