Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• Researchers at Aalto University in Finland used an innovative process to create a dress out of wood from a ship that sank during the 1600s.
• Ioncell, which was developed at the university, used only salt and water to transform remnants of the wreck (which could not be salvaged) into fabric.
• The fabric showed a tenacity greater than that of rayon, cotton and even Lyocell, proving that sustainable fashion can be created from the most unexpected materials.

Recycled fabrics fold into geometric silhouettes. Dresses that light up like computer circuits brush against Terminator-esque bodysuits. A 3D cape that mimics the wings of a butterfly takes flight. Merging fashion and futurism, the Tomorrow’s Wardrobe exhibition at Finland’s Oulu Art Museum is a capsule of experimental visions, including a dress woven out of the remains of a 17^th-century shipwreck.

This next-gen showcase is part of the larger European Capital of Culture program, and explores new biomaterials made from “trash”—a concept exemplified perfectly by the shipwreck dress. Archaeologists had unfortunately been unable to preserve the wood from the remains of the Hahtiperä wreck, which surfaced in 2019 during hotel construction in Oulu. But the fading remains inspired Susanna Ahola, an Aalto University Bioinnovation Center coordinator, and she reached out to researchers Michael Hummel and Inge Schlapp-Hackl in the hopes of finding some way to salvage the wreckage. Eventually, they landed on the creation of a dress.

But how can rotted wood from over 300 years ago be turned into wearable art? Well, after the planks were stripped of their outer layers and impurities, their cores underwent shredding and processing until they were turned into a dissolving pulp ready to transform into fiber using a method known as Ioncell. This process was developed at Aalto University (in collaboration with Helsinki University) in a project led by Aalto researcher Herbert Sixta. Conceived as an alternative to viscose—a fabric that is derived from wood pulp, but is considered semi-synthetic and is made with chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide—Ioncell is created using a liquid salt known as ionic liquid. The resulting solution is then exposed to water until filaments of dissolved cellulose precipitate out of the mixture and can be collected for use.

Ioncell fabric has been shown to be stronger than viscose, cotton, and even Lyocell (which is considered a sustainable alternative to viscose). Its tenacity comes from stretching the cellulose solution—which has shown incredible viscoelastic properties—to align its molecules in a parallel arrangement without breaking the filaments. Fibers are then spun into two-ply yarn that responds well to knitting and weaving in industrial machines. Since its invention, Ioncell fabric has been successfully produced from scrapped Euro banknotes and newspapers, then run through a Shima Seiki knitting machine without issues. Wood that was hundreds of years old and buried in what was once the bottom of the ocean seems to work much the same way.

“The successfully knitted and woven garments from the Ioncell yarn demonstrate the suitability of this particular ionic liquid for the production of man-made cellulosic fibers and thus give a promising outlook for the future of the Ioncell-F process,” Sixta said in a 2015 study, published in Textile Research Journal after he oversaw development of the process.

Crafted in a pale umber hue and run through with wood grain textures reminiscent of both its source material and the digital noise of the computer age, the flowing, floor-length dress was designed by lecturer Anna-Mari Leppisaari at Aalto University’s knitting studio using an AI algorithm created by senior lecturer Severi Uusitalo. His algorithm is just as eco-friendly as the fabric itself (contrary to many more well-known AI programs that use massive amounts of energy). It is also intended to work with, rather than replace, human designers by generating different patterns based on their own ideas. Using the tech, Leppisaari created two seamless dresses with zero waste, each of which reflected the wish of the Finnish Heritage Agency to transform a piece of history into fashion while reflecting its origins.

The first of these dresses will be on display into the fall of 2026 as part of the Tomorrow’s Wardrobe Exhibition at the Oulu Art Museum. The second dress will be at Aalto University’s Designs for a Cooler Planet exhibition, which opens September 1. The rest of the Hahtiperä wreck has also been transformed into art—in the form of an installation named Ahti’s Palm, designed by Kalle Salonen—before it was reburied.

Even though the Hahtiperä wreck couldn’t be preserved as it was, art will do what art does best and allow its legacy to live on.