From studying fashion and science to developing her own brand, Rosie Broadhead is reshaping the future of clothes and wellness.
When we think about wellness, we often think about what we eat or the composition of the products we use. But what we rarely think about is the clothes we wear.
Just like food or beauty products, “what you’re wearing does have an impact on your health in the same way that what you’re eating has an impact on your health. We just tend to overlook it.” That is what Rosie Broadhead, a British designer and textile scientist, explains to me. In 2021, she founded Skin Series, a clothing brand focusing on natural performance and skin health.
Rosie graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fashion menswear design, then pursued a master’s in Futures Material at Central Saint Martins. While working for sportswear companies to improve the athletes’ performance, she realised: “Athletes are so in tune with their bodies in terms of what they’re eating, their exercise, health, air. Yet the clothes that are sitting next to their skin are full of toxic chemicals. That couldn’t be the future of performance wear.”
This eye-opener has led Rosie to look at research papers and understand the interaction between the body, the skin, and textiles:“My interest in science was motivated by understanding the body.” In 2021, Rosie collaborated with a microbiology team at Ghent University to study the skin microbiome and its relationship to textiles. She wanted to understand how to create textiles laced with probiotics or therapeutic ingredients that might benefit your skin. This type of research paves the way for a new way of thinking about clothes considering health and well-being.
Her research set the foundation for Skin Series, which she describes as “the physical, tangible outcome for my research in the lab”. The meaning was to use what already exists on our bodies to drive performance in clothing. She started to create textiles, knitted textiles, and undergarments made from therapeutic yarns, natural materials, or cellulose-based materials with healthy properties for the skin, such as antioxidant or anti-inflammatory benefits. “The goal was to create garments that we would wear really close to the body, just like a second skin”, she says. On the website, we can find tank tops, bodysuits and t-shirts designed to be good for the skin. She explains that “these garments contain algae, probiotics or different ingredients that have a positive effect on your health, but at the same time we also try to avoid synthetics and other toxic chemicals that you might find in clothing.”
Developing innovation came with obstacles, especially with special textiles. While creating Skin Series, Rosie faced challenges. “The textile supply chain is actually not geared towards working with live bacteria or living organisms”, she explains. In traditional production, the use of high temperatures, dyes and industrial stages destroys microbes. To overcome this, Rosie and her team developed a probiotic finish encapsulated in a bio-based shell applied at the final stage of manufacturing to resist heat and moisture. This was a five-year process, which was followed by health and safety tests. As Rosie puts it, “There is a lot of innovation in biofabrication and sustainable outcomes. But scaling it into the market for a consumer product is really challenging.”
Rosie emphasised that it is the public, rather than the industry, driving the shift toward health-conscious textiles, pointing out that as awareness grows around nutrition and cosmetics, “there is definitely a lot more focus on the health and wellness market,” and clothing is beginning to be seen through the same lens. Even if awareness is growing, there is still a misconception about bacteria, as it can sound unhygienic. But as Rosie reminds us: “You can’t sterilise your life. Not all bacteria are bad, and sometimes when you’re washing your clothing, you can add more bacteria to your textiles afterwards.”
Choosing to better understand the composition of the clothes we wear allows us to avoid the health risks related to fast fashion. When we hear about fast fashion, we’re used to thinking about the environmental damage, but its consequences on our health should also be considered. Some substances, like formaldehyde, which makes fabrics crease-resistant, can cause skin irritation, respiratory issues, and allergic reactions and may be associated with brain disorders, according to the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.
We can’t pretend to live healthily – taking vitamins and working out while still wearing toxic clothes. Designers like Rosie Broadhead show us that fashion shouldn’t cost us our bodies, and choosing better textiles can help us live better.
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