Over the course of its history, design has never lost sight of nature as a term of comparison, sometimes taking from it, sometimes moving away from it. To investigate the complex relationship between the two terms, design and nature, we cannot ignore the evolution of man and how it has been profoundly influenced by technological innovation, which is the most evident result of science. Tracing an evolutionary line of design thinking, a double trajectory can be registered: on the one hand the tension towards progress and the myth of the machine, on the other hand the idea of a harmonious co-evolution with nature and the need to be reconnected with it. Besides, it is progress that allows mankind to thoroughly investigate natural mechanisms and make them their own. Contemporary design, autonomous but at the same time increasingly interdisciplinary, has got blurred boundaries which intersect with the most advanced fields of biological sciences. This evolution has opened up a whole new field of investigation that multiplies the opportunities of innovation, especially from a sustainability-oriented point of view. Today the dramatic breaking of the balance between man and nature has turned into the concept of permanent emergency, which is now matter of greatest interest for design, a design that attempts to react, mend, adapt to change in an authentically resilient way.

The dyeing and finishing step represents a clear hotspot in the textile supply chain as the wet processing stages require significant amounts of water, energy, and chemicals. In order to tackle environmental issues, natural dyes are gaining attention from researchers as more sustainable alternatives to synthetic ones. This review discusses the topic of natural dyes, providing a description of their main features and differences compared to synthetic dyes, and encompasses a summary of recent research in the field of natural dyes with specific reference to the following areas of sustainable innovation: extraction techniques, the preparation of substrates, the mordanting process, and the dyeing process. The literature review showed that promising new technologies and techniques have been successfully employed to improve the performance and sustainability of natural dyeing processes, but several limitations such as the poor fastness properties of natural dyes, their low affinity with textiles substrates, difficulties in the reproducibility of shades, as well as other factors such as cost-effectiveness considerations, still prevent industry from adopting natural dyes on a larger scale and will require further research in order to expand their use beyond niche applications.

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This study aims to reflect on a possible symbiosis between the fashion system and unrelated companies focused on reducing textile waste. Recent developments in the fashion system, in terms of the organizational network, highlight the importance of collaboration, or vice versa of competition enhancement mechanisms. The highly innovative and creative skills and tasks concentrate much of the value in the creation phase, characteristic of emerging sectors such as creative ones. The methodology will be carried out through a review of the reference literature, with a critical, constructive, and real analysis on strategies for the construction of this symbiosis. It is expected to contribute to a reflection on the development of collaboration and cooperation skills in an interdisciplinary, or even transdisciplinary approach, for the training and preparation of fashion design professionals, requiring a greater commitment from Academia in the creation of interactions and interrelationships with still very different disciplinary sectors.

Responding to a sustainable production is an imperative that is gaining more and more relevance in the definition of specific programs and strategies at national and international level. This urgency leads towards zero waste and circular models and processes that minimize the extraction of resources from the biosphere and do not create waste; instead, when the waste of natural or anthropogenic transformations cannot be avoided, their valorization as resources must be carried out. The development of integrated supply chains, knowledge transfer between different disciplines and the dialogue between research and industry becomes fundamental for the achievement of these objectives. Existing studies in the literature regarding the agri-food production chain in Italy show that the sector, whose environmental impacts are by no means marginal, is fragmented in many small production companies; an interesting and critical aspect at the same time since the generation of waste is not accompanied by an appropriate dissemination of data at a quantitative-qualitative level and there is no clear regulatory framework available on alternative management and valorisation methods. Design, given its natural inclination to transversality, allows to trace scenarios in which to configure, through interdisciplinary approaches, the sustainability models that are intended to be covered in this contribution. Moreover, its methods and tools allow to develop a critical thinking starting from the very early designing phase. The paper addresses the valorisation of agro-industrial waste in a circular and systemic perspective through the presentation of a review of case studies from the textile supply chain, which is one of the most relevant for Italian industry.Due to its disastrous environmental impact, the global textile industry is today the subject of extensive research aimed at the development of innovative materials and processes in order to overcome the traditional linearity of the textile supply chain. The negative impacts of the textile industry are distributed along the entire value chain and are mainly attributable to greenhouse gas emissions -for which the textile industry represents the fifth manufacturing sector- consumption and pollution of water resources and the production of textile waste. In particular, the production of synthetic fibers, which is estimated to be almost two thirds of the global fiber production, is associated with a high use of non-renewable resources and emissions, which derives from the extraction of fossil fuels. In this sense, the valorisation of agro-industrial waste as secondary raw materials and new sustainable inputs for the textile supply chain, represents an opportunity not yet fully explored, in particular as regards the development of a new generation of fibers, yarns and eco-compatible fabrics alternative to the materials currently in use. Bio-based wastes and by-products from agri-food industry could as well present enormous potential for valorisation in the textile finish due to their intrinsic properties (antimicrobial, prebiotic, antioxidant activity, among others). At present, nevertheless, textiles from agro-residues do not completely meet the requirements to make them an attractive replacement for conventional fibre sources. Future research should therefore focus on identifying new agro-residue based blends that offer both performance and sustainability, adopting a systemic design approach based on interdisciplinary and interconnections as a strategy for innovation.