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How can you add value to the seven million litres of

milk unfit for consumption that are wasted every

year in France? To answer this question, CNIEL

(National Inter-trade Centre for the Dairy Industry)

and CETI (European Centre for Innovative Textiles)

asked the very media-present fashion designer

Mossi Traoré to produce his first collection made

with milk fibre. An opportunity for him to list on

Instagram the properties of this fabric that is similar

to silk: soft, heat-regulating, fireproof and hypo-

allergenic.

In Mythologies, Roland Barthes stated that in the

grand morphology of substances, milk is characterised

by its molecular density and the creamy and therefore

calming nature of its texture. “Milk is cosmetic. It binds,

recovers, restores,” he concluded, not knowing that one

day milk could also be used to dress the body. Barthes

would have perhaps written that milk is becoming

a symbol of the “Re” economy with the design and

recycling of milk cartons and all their possible

transformations into eco-friendly materials. The more

companies recycle undrinkable milk into natural and

biodegradable textile fibres, the more technology will

develop and the more affordable it will be. Tomorrow,

dairy products will perhaps be lifelong friends for our

wardrobes.