How Our Creative Community Inspires Us
[ Story ]
Article
At The Lab, culture and creativity is the ground we inhabit, the language we speak, and the medium through which we build. We exist in ongoing dialogue with the artists, tastemakers, and communities who shape contemporary culture; in this way, we’re engaged in an ongoing exchange that continuously informs how we think, create, and innovate.
To us, creative culture represents the human aspect of living: the stories, gestures, and expressions that bind communities together and move ideas forward. We need this grounding, as we innovate products and ideas that represent nature’s intelligence: the invisible microbial systems, regenerative cycles, and living processes that sustain life. At The Lab, our work lives in the space where these two forces meet. We use creativity as connective tissue — a way of translating between human culture and biological systems — to offer our community tools and narratives that honour both people and the planet.
Collaboration is where this dialogue finds its most tangible form. When we partner with cultural visionaries — whether visual artists, designers, musicians, or thinkers — we are using the mode of fashion care to co-shape new ways of seeing and engaging with the future.
Together, we explore new materials, reimagine packaging, subvert visual languages, and layer scientific function with cultural resonance. Through these iterative exchanges, our products become cleaning solutions with a double meaning and our brand is actively designing sustainable futures through culture. We think it’s cool to care.
We use creativity as connective tissue, a way of translating between human culture and biological systems.
For example, in our limited-edition collaborations with incredible brands from Dior to New Balance, Sneaker Freaker and more; bottles and kits become transformed through distinctive visual languages that mirror the communities they come from. These collaborations ripple through our entire ecosystem, and our interactions can alter the course of our work. An artist’s approach might inspire the way a campaign is styled, or a conversation with a skater about their scuffed sneakers can spark a new product idea. A designer’s philosophy might shift how we think about storytelling – and this reciprocity keeps our ecosystem alive, layered, and constantly evolving — much like a microbial system, where different organisms exchange signals, co-evolve, and sustain the whole.
Listening is as integral to this process as creating. Cultural authenticity demands attunement, and a sensitivity to the subtle shifts and nuanced movements within communities and creative scenes. At The Lab, we pay close attention to the pulse of underground cultures, youth subcultures, and emerging artistic or aesthetic movements (it helps that many of our team members are part of these spaces). We are equally attentive to how conversations around sustainability are evolving: moving away from lofty ideals and towards embodied practices, rituals of care, and material literacy. This attentiveness shapes how we frame our products and narratives. We refuse to see fashion care as an afterthought, instead, it's a cultural practice in itself that we have almost lost entirely to senseless consumerism.
Our approach to visual storytelling follows the same principle. We resist the impulse to impose a singular, top-down aesthetic. Instead, we draw from the worlds that inspire us. Editorial gestures, spatial design cues, the rhythm of streetwear and art scenes — these are all woven into our visual expression. The result is communication that aims to be a reflection of real cultural movements. This is how we maintain resonance: by building within culture, and by being part of culture itself.
Listening is as integral to this process as creating. Cultural authenticity demands attunement, and a sensitivity to the subtle shifts and nuanced movements within communities and creative scenes. At The Lab, we pay close attention to the pulse of underground cultures, youth subcultures, and emerging artistic or aesthetic movements (it helps that many of our team members are part of these spaces). We are equally attentive to how conversations around sustainability are evolving: moving away from lofty ideals and towards embodied practices, rituals of care, and material literacy. This attentiveness shapes how we frame our products and narratives. We refuse to see fashion care as an afterthought, instead, it's a cultural practice in itself that we have almost lost entirely to senseless consumerism.
Our approach to visual storytelling follows the same principle. We resist the impulse to impose a singular, top-down aesthetic. Instead, we draw from the worlds that inspire us. Editorial gestures, spatial design cues, the rhythm of streetwear and art scenes — these are all woven into our visual expression. The result is communication that aims to be a reflection of real cultural movements. This is how we maintain resonance: by building within culture, and by being part of culture itself.
Innovation starts in conversation — where culture, science, and storytelling meet.
At its core, The Lab is not a fixed entity. It is a living system that mediates between culture and bio-innovation through creativity. We push ourselves to design products that are biologically intelligent and culturally resonant, and to build narratives that speak to both human emotion and ecological responsibility.
Our commitment to bio-innovation is inseparable from our commitment to cultural, creative authenticity. We believe that meaningful innovation happens in conversation — between people and ideas, between cultural languages and scientific breakthroughs, between the stories we tell and the ecosystems we inhabit. By grounding our evolution in authentic cultural relationships while advancing bio-based technologies, we are shaping a future of fashion care that is emotionally attuned, materially intelligent, and ecologically conscious. The Lab continues to expand what fashion care can be: a functional, shared cultural practice that connects people to each other, and to the natural systems that sustain us. After all, who is it all for but the creative community that has shaped, inspired, and walked alongside us from the start?
Our commitment to bio-innovation is inseparable from our commitment to cultural, creative authenticity. We believe that meaningful innovation happens in conversation — between people and ideas, between cultural languages and scientific breakthroughs, between the stories we tell and the ecosystems we inhabit. By grounding our evolution in authentic cultural relationships while advancing bio-based technologies, we are shaping a future of fashion care that is emotionally attuned, materially intelligent, and ecologically conscious. The Lab continues to expand what fashion care can be: a functional, shared cultural practice that connects people to each other, and to the natural systems that sustain us. After all, who is it all for but the creative community that has shaped, inspired, and walked alongside us from the start?
[ Follow ]
