Knots often bring to mind sailors, climbers, and scouts, but they are just as essential to crafters who enjoy techniques like macramé, an art form that uses knots to create intricate patterns with cords or threads, producing items ranging from wall hangings to jewelry.
Its origins can be traced back to the 13th century, with Arabic weavers who used knotting to craft decorative fringes on garments and household items. The term "macramé" itself comes indeed from the Arabic word "migramah", meaning "fringe." This technique spread to Spain in the 15th century, brought by the Moors, and from there, it gained popularity across Europe through trade and conquest, becoming particularly favored during the Renaissance.
Sailors significantly influenced the spread of macramé by knotting decorative pieces to pass the time at sea and selling or trading them at different ports. By the 19th century, macramé had taken hold in Victorian England as a fashionable hobby, used to embellish clothing, tablecloths, and curtains.
Once a staple of 1960s and 1970s fashion, macramé has often reappeared on the runways in more recent years. It appeared for example in Gabriela Hearst’s design for Chloé for Venus Williams at the 2022 Met Gala, in David Koma's S/S 2023 and Simone Rocha's A/W 2023 collections, and in Grace Wales Bonner's Java dress made of waxed cotton with Ghanaian wood and glass beads (S/S 23).
But knots have also intrigued mathematicians and physicists for centuries. A study published in March 2023, entitled "Knots are not for naught: Design, properties, and topology of hierarchical intertwined microarchitected materials" and published on Science Advances, explored a new kind of material built using micro-knots, making it stronger and more durable than traditional materials that rely on connections like junctions, which often serve as weak points. These junctions can accumulate stress and lead to damage, while the introduction of micro-knots eliminates the need for such connections and significantly enhances the material's performance.
The knotted material was developed in the lab of Julia R. Greer, a leading researcher in creating nano-architected materials, materials with a structure designed and organized at a nanometer scale and that exhibit unique properties that allow them to behave in surprising ways. This innovative approach involves using advanced 3D lithography techniques to produce materials that incorporate knots directly into their structure at a microscopic level (so the knots were not tied, but manufactured in a knotted state). Each knot is about 70 micrometers in height and width, and is made from thin polymer fibers with a radius about one-hundredth that of a human hair.
This is not the first time such tiny knots were created: in 2017 a team of chemists from the University of Manchester used molecules to form a chemical knot two hundred thousand times thinner than a human hair (tiny chemical knots are the key to the design of materials with new properties, so fashion students reading this take note...).
Yet the "Knots are not for naught" research is the first one in which a material made of knots at this scale was created, something that could be ideal to make highly extensible low-density materials with tunable shape reconfiguration and energy absorption capabilities.
The key findings of the study show that the inclusion of knots allows the material to deform, stretch and absorb energy more effectively. In tensile strength tests, knotted materials absorbed up to 92% more energy and could stretch up to 107% further before breaking, compared to unknotted or woven materials that are structurally identical. This is due to the unique topology of the knots, which creates a new regime of deformation and shape retention. The knots also enhance energy dissipation through frictional contact, giving the material an improved ability to withstand stress without permanent damage, retaining therefore their original shape.
This breakthrough in material science has potential applications in biomedicine and aerospace engineering, where materials that are both lightweight and highly resilient are essential. The new material's ability to reconfigure its shape while retaining toughness suggests that it could be used for medical sutures, durable textiles, or components that must withstand extreme conditions.
The samples described in the Science Advances publication feature basic knots - specifically, an overhand knot with an added twist that increases friction, enhancing the material's energy absorption when stretched. But the researchers aim to investigate materials incorporating more complex knot designs. Could macramé inspire them? Perhaps. In turn, they might inspire designers to delve deeper into exploring the strength and versatility of knots in fashion design.
Comments