INDIGO, AFRICA & FUTURE FASHION

Fashion can evolve by blockchain. Our goal is to make sustainable indigo dyes in Africa and make traceable circulation in fashion with them.

We have abundant experience in;

• Making natural indigo dye by growing indigo plants in several countries

• Teaching people how to grow indigo plants and to extract the pigment

• Making indigo dyed clothing / fashion items using the pigment we made

[IMPACT]

Overcoming environmental problems such as global warming is now one of the most important propositions common to all humankind, and major changes are required in the field of fashion. Breaking away from unsustainable fast fashion, which continues to generate large amounts of waste and pollution, is an urgent task that must be realized immediately. On the other hand, the problem of global disparity such as the North-South divide remains unsolved, and the gap between rich and poor has been widening in recent years due to the influence of the pandemic. This environmental problem and the problem of disparity cannot be said to be independent problems, but are intricately linked at the root. Gabon, an emerging country just below the equator in the Midwestern part of Africa, is one of the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change and is a victim of global warming caused by the economic activities of developed countries concentrated in the northern northern hemisphere. Our project aims to create a truly sustainable fashion flow, starting from Gabon, where global warming is progressing, and using organic indigo dyes derived from plants that grow only in the tropics. We believe that will lead to the future development of Gabon and, in turn, to shed light on the negative chain of environmental and inequality problems. 

Our mission is to combine organic indigo dyes from the majestic land of Gabon with tamper-resistant and traceable blockchain technology to create a new vision for sustainable and future-oriented fashion, so that humankind will continue to live on this beautiful planet forever. 

First, I would like to explain a little about Gabon. It is a small country in Central Africa with a population of about 2 million. The forest just below the equator grows the richest and most diverse flora and fauna on the planet, occupying 87% of the country's land area. The climate is characterized by high temperature and humidity almost all the time, and there are only two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season. In our project, we will cultivate a tropical plant of the leguminous family called Indigofera, which contains the largest amount of a raw material for dyes, and Gabon’s such climate is perfect for Indigofera to grow. And since the population of Gabon is small and the population density is very low (8 people per square meter) for a large land area, it can be said that there is no inconvenience in space. So the hurdles for acquiring farmland are low, which is convenient for our project.

Gabon is a country rich in natural resources such as precious timber, oil and manganese, and its GDP per capita is about the same as that of Eastern European countries. However, due to lack of fairness in income distribution, the disparity is large, strong industries are not growing, and the economy is not diversifying, so most of the people are forced to live in poverty and the unemployment rate is very high. There is still a lot of room for Gabon to develop in the future.

The use of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in Gabon is new, with a relatively low percentage of banking (30%), although higher than the African average (10%). It is an almost untouched country in Africa, which CARDANO / ADA attaches great importance to, and it may be possible to win the first-mover advantage in the wake of this project.

Now let’s get into the main subject. What we propose is a mechanism for sustainable fashion starting from Gabon, which is supported by blockchain technology. Information related to the cultivation of indigo plants, and various information related to the act of dyeing can be guaranteed by blockchain, which has excellent traceability and tamper resistance innately. As a result, the value of the clothing we manufacture as sustainable fashion is guaranteed, and the difference from fast fashion led by large companies, which is one of the causes of global warming, is clearer to consumers. Currently, petroleum derived dyes are used in almost all fashion items on the market, regardless of the type of material, from organic cotton to high-tech synthetic fibers, but those who are aware of this is still limited. In this era of increasing environmental awareness, however, we believe it's only a matter of time before people realize that all the colors used in their fashion are unsustainable. If that happens, we predict that the social needs for sustainable dye production will increase at a stretch.

Grow plants, extract dyes, dye clothes, wear them, and when they fade, dye them again and reuse them - such cycle of production and reuse, which is commonplace for natural indigo, seems to hide hints for future fashion. Furthermore, by utilizing the tamper resistance and traceability of blockchain, we will create a mechanism to directly convey the origin of all raw materials including dyes and all manufacturing processes up to commercialization to end users. When this becomes a reality, the dynamism of traditional mass-produced and consumer fashion with unknown roots will be renewed.

We think that there are two major challenges that must be overcome in order to successfully guide the project.

The first is how to trace dyes, that is, the physical substance with color, as digital information on the blockchain. We recognize this as our biggest challenge. Attempts to connect the physical and digital worlds have already been made in various projects, but the methods are mixed and it seems that no one has yet reached a 100% correct answer. We are in a position to manage and promote the entire manufacturing process, from growing indigo plants from seeds, extracting dyes, and creating prototypes of fashion items based on them. Information on the manufacturing process of products can be carefully traced on the blockchain one by one. And when it comes to the final product, we will carefully scrutinize and select information that meets the needs of consumers, rather than putting all the information blindly.

To avoid misunderstanding, we would like make clear that the content of this proposal does not include the development of software that manages and operates sustainable fashion using blockchain technology. The softwear development will be focused on when this project was finished successfully. This time, in parallel with the challenge of dye production starting from sowing, we will carefully make preparations for software development such as defining detailed requirements. The final contents of the software will be decided after determining the latest CARDANO / ADA specifications at that time.

We would like to introduce only the outlook of our future software as below.

1. NFT conversion of information about the dye used for product

We will issue an NFT with information related to color roots such as the type, habitat, and time of the plant, so that the incidental information of the dye can be treated as confirmable and verifiable information.

1. NFT conversion of all other information related to the origin of product

We will issue an NFT that includes all the important information for the end users related to the origin of the fashion product, such as production areas, raw materials, and date of the fashion items was being dyed, so that they can be treated as confirmable and verifiable information.

1. Issue a new NFT to accompany the completed fashion item

We will create an NFT that accompanies the final product by integrating the two NFT-ized information made in 1 and 2.

1. A new NFT of fashion items will be issued each time they are dyed

The owner of the dyed product can dye it again whenever they want, and each time the product is dyed again, the new nft is produced with the new information of the dyeing. All of the dyeing history becomes traceable information, enabling "proof of value by sustainable indicators" in fashion.

[FEASIBILITY]

1) Securing agricultural land and labor

2) Securing seeds of indigo plants

3) Sowing seeds

4) Germination and growth

5) Leaf harvest

6) Extract pigments from harvested leaves

7) Dye the fabric etc. using the extracted pigment

8) Make a prototype that is a candidate for items to be commercialized using dyed fabrics.

9) All records of the manufacturing process are scrutinized from the user's point of view and stamped on the blockchain.

10) Integrate product prototypes with digital information on the blockchain

It is difficult to accurately predict the time it takes from sowing to harvesting the leaves, but it is likely that the first harvest can be expected within a year. After that, it will take about half a year to smoothly proceed to the finishing of the product prototype with digital information about the origin, following the dye extraction and dyeing work.

Considering the above, it is expected that the total process from sowing to the completion of the prototype will be about one and a half years.

Making natural indigo pigment: 25,000 USD

[Breakdown]

• Securing farmland, securing labor, and other physical costs associated with cultivation: 15,000 USD

• Technical costs for sowing, cultivating, reaping and pigment extraction: 10,000 USD

Product prototype creation: 20,000 USD

[Breakdown]

• Manufacturing cost to prototype a product: $ 15,000

• Recording information in the manufacturing process and preparation cost for future software creation: 5,000 USD

Promotion / Operarion: 5,000 USD

• General online promotion activities such as website construction, and other cost

Tatz Miki: Artist, a master of indigo dye making. He is an indigo specialist and the founder of this project, who has a deep experiential knowledge of the natural indigo dye and the academic insight for it.

Benjamin Mendou: An experienced civil engineering computer-aid designer living in Paris, this French-Gabonese has a good understanding of Central Africa's market environment. Well connected with Gabon, it's thanks to him that we decided to start this project in Africa.

Osamu Takahashi: He is a blockchain enthusiast, who has been producing projects on blockchain with the engineers. He has been helping the digital strategy of Tatz Miki’s artistic activity.

[AUDITABILITY]

Literally, the creation of product prototype will start from sowing, so it is clear at a glance how far the manufacturing process has progressed from the growth of plants, etc., so it will be easy to grasp the progress of the project. All the details of this manufacturing process will be recorded, in order to prepare for the future software we make on the blockchain in a form that cannot be tampered with as information on the origin of the product. So the progress should be known from the records.

The essence of the future fashion that we envision is unprecedented sustainable fashion with unalterable information about the origin of things, such as raw materials and manufacturing processes. In this project, we aim to stand on the starting line for the next bigger challenge of commercializing the prototypes we have created and distributing them to the world. The new scenery that can only be seen by standing at that starting line is proof of the success of this project.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/384284

We change the proposal category to Nation Building by welcoming a new French-Gabonese member! The fundamental goal of the proposal, that is to create a global sustainable fashion movement, is unchanged from the last proposal. We simply cut out the community building part and included the thing we have been doing for a long time, “the actual organic color making” as a main part of the project.