Eureka: how Gozen is growing a new material that’s taking over the runways

0:15You're listening to Eureka on Monocle Radio, brought to you by the team behind the entrepreneurs, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies, and fresh ideas in global business. I'm Tom Edwards. Eje Gizan is the co-founder and CEO of The Eponymous Gizan, a design-led biotechnology scale-up based in Istanbul. A designer, artist, and self-described bio-alchemist, Eje has spent her career exploring how nature and technology can work together to create new kinds of materials. That curiosity led her to develop Luniform, a new biomaterial that isn't extracted or manufactured, but grown.

0:52It's a process that takes just seven days to cultivate continuous sheets of nanocellulose, creating a strong, flexible material that feels close to leather, but without animals or fossil-based inputs. And the fashion world is certainly taking notice, with brands including Balenciaga already using it. So how do you grow a material and bring it to the world's biggest runways? Well, here is Ece with more on how the journey began.

1:25I studied fashion and textile design and I was a fashion designer. But even as a fashion designer, I was always taking some inspiration from nature technology to really celebrate those topics through my collections. But six, seven years ago, I just felt like taking inspiration from nature is not just enough from me because I was also as a designer serving to the industry who also calls us to the planet. So I literally stopped everything and started to think like as a designer. And obviously, after realizing that fashion's big problem comes from the raw material. So as a designer perspective, I started to think like how we can design a new material system in a collaboration with nature.

2:13And I literally sacrificed everything and started my new journey, new chapter to really find a solution. I work with Nike as their brand sustainability ambassador. I was their sustainability brand ambassador and it was the beginning of my journey because at that moment I stopped fashion designing. And then I started to like stopping fashion designer, becoming bio designer and then innovator and then CEO and then entrepreneur. So this is constantly evolving journey. Everyone keeps asking me what the hell I'm doing. And honestly, it's really, really hard to explain. I feel like I'm everything at once because I'm a designer, an innovator, a creative director and CEO.

2:58and it's like I'm constantly shapeshifting that word defines me I have always had this holistic approach I don't separate art science or even business to me it's really it's all connected but if you told me I could only choose one word I would like to say I'm a bio alchemist because what I do is using nature's own language and its systems and its intelligence and transform that into matter within biology. So turning those ideas into something real, something you can touch, and that's what drives everything I do.

3:40I really like our motto, as a new world, a new form, because obviously Gozan represents a new world and Lunaform represents a new form. So Lunaform is Gozan's breakthrough material innovation. Firstly, let me explain that game-changing material in a little bit scientific way. So it's grown, not made, through our property biocraft technology. So it's organic, strong, scalable, and we designed for visionary creatives who care about both beauty and impact. So what makes Lena Form special, that is combine the strength and durability of traditional material, but it's 100 % biobase and grown in just seven days with minimal inputs through the fermentation steps.

4:29So basically you can think about fermentation processes like fermenting your yogurt or fermenting your beer. So basically we are feeding our ancestors, which is our microorganism, with natural agents. And in seven days, that fermentation liquid becomes a solid as a biopolymer. So we are calling that unique form as a luna form. Each piece has its own texture and its own memory. It's a living material born from nature. And I actually explain how luna form is created in a few different ways. So we have bees in nature, right? So imagine we have our own creative bees and those bees are representing our microorganisms.

5:13So just like bees needs flowers and nectar to make honey, And our microorganisms need their own natural environment and nutrition. So in our facility, we recreated that cycle, in a sense. We have special designed rooms. We feed them with natural agents that represent the nectar. So obviously, just like the purest form is honey, what they create in the torrent is lunaform. So lunaform is our honey. And 100 bio-based nanosellulose at a raw state. and it's a material grown through collaboration, not extraction. So this is important for me and it's only possible within our biocraft technology that I developed with my amazing team.

5:58But on the other hand, that part only covers just raw material processes, right? In just seven days. So compared to half traditional materials like leather or cotton are processed, we skip so many difficult, toxic and complicated steps.

6:18And it's really still magical processes to me and every day we are exploring to work with that amazing material. We are not just scientists, we are not just designers, or at least we are not only those things because we are the bearers of possibility and the drivers of the necessary change. We started our journey collaborating with Balenciaga. First, they launch our biomaterial through their Spring-Summer 24 collection. And then we build our facility in Istanbul, which is heart of textile and leather industry. And right now we are serving so many brands through Lunaform to adapt that new material reality.

7:02So obviously working with big clients is already exciting for Gozan. but every day like we are really making big improvements, big achievements as a startup. While we are also making collaborations, we are caring of how we are communicated with the consumers because even we are selling our product to brands, we are excited to communicate or tell our story to the end consumers as well. So currently we are working on those storytelling projects hands-on-on with brands to create awareness about brands because it's not just about sustainability anymore, it's just about a real thing. And Gozen is the real thing, Lunaform is the real thing.

7:43What we are doing is creating a huge impact. But if you really want to jump a bigger impact, meaning that we have to also create mass production and collaborative work for the future and we need a strategic partners to really achieve that my stance. We are working on a game-changing strategic partnership and probably we will also define that exact journey in a few months. And yes, this is really important because working with brands, selling your product is not just enough. You have to also think about for like five years later, ten years later, and you should collaborate with the real visionaries who is also supporting your vision for the long term.

8:49That was Eje Gazan, the co-founder and CEO of Gazan. And you can learn more about the business and its incredible products by heading to gazan.world. And that's all for this episode of Eureka. We'll be back at the same time next week. The programme's produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by Jack Dewars. Listen again and find out more at monocle.com or follow us and subscribe wherever you get your audio. And if you'd like to reach out to the team, email Laura on lrk at monocle.com. I'm Tom Edwards. Goodbye and thanks for listening to Eureka.