Wear Milk? Anke Domaske says why not. The 28-year-old German is the designer of an award-winning new textile made entirely from milk that's environmentally friendly as well as soothing to people with skin allergies. Called “Qmilch,” it drapes and folds like silk, but can be washed and dried like cotton. The biochemist and fashion designer has so far only used the fabric to make dresses for her own MCC fashion line. But next year Domaske has plans to begin mass producing — and several companies have already expressed interest in using the fabric. Qmilch — a combination of quality and the German word for milk — won the innovation award of Germany's Textile Research Association, which recognized it as a new, sustainable fiber that could revolutionize the clothing industry. Currently, apparel depends heavily on byproducts from oil, or natural resources such as water — used in the thousands of liters (gallons) to produce just a bolt of cotton. “We know that everything that is based on oil has a limit, that materials like cotton that take up a lot of land, water and chemicals are limited, so we need to think about how we in produce fabrics and textiles in the future,” said Klaus Jansen, who heads the Textile Research Association.
