At the End of the World: Nous Étudions Creates the First Collection Crafted Exclusively from Celium™

When fashion meets the edge of the world, something more than a collection takes shape. In Ushuaia, where land and ice converge under the southern winds, Nous Étudions unveiled El fin del mundo, principio de todo (The End of the World, Beginning of Everything), a collaboration with Polybion that redefines how design, biology, and place can converge.

A dialogue between body, biology, and landscape

As reported by Vogue México in their article “End of the World. Beginning of Everything: A Collection that Amplifies its Connection with Nature and Imperfect Fashion”,  the collection was born from designer Romina Cardillo’s expedition to Antarctica, an experience that reshaped her relationship with nature and sparked a renewed sense of purpose: to create from what lives, breathes, and transforms. In her words, it became a call to conserve, not only through message but through material.

That search led her to Polybion, the Mexican company pioneering Celium™, a biomaterial cultivated from bacterial cellulose derived from agroindustrial fruit waste. What began as an exchange of ideas evolved into a joint experiment, adapting Polybion’s Premium Cultivated Cellulose, to the structural and expressive needs of fashion.

A collection grown, not extracted

Over several months, both teams worked together to explore how Celium™ could take on different densities, weights, and textures. For the first time, an entire collection was created exclusively with Celium™ in its Original, Translucent, and Espumante variants.

Marie Claire México highlighted that the collaboration pushed material innovation through manual pleating and laser-cut techniques, revealing how a biomaterial could move, fold, and breathe like fabric yet retain its natural depth and integrity.

Fashion Network described the result as “a narrative about the future of materials and the limits of design,” merging science, art, and nature into one living statement.

The southernmost runway on Earth

Set within Tierra del Fuego National Park, the collection’s presentation transformed Patagonia into a natural stage. According to Le Banana and FashionUnited, the experience unfolded over three days of expeditions across forests, rivers, and glaciers; culminating in a multisensory show accompanied by Malala Lekander’s sound performance, inspired by tides and southern winds.

Every look reflected the dialogue between ecosystem and creation: pleated silhouettes evoking kelp forests, pink and ochre tones drawn from Fuegian landscapes, and delicate volumes shaped by the softness of Espumante.

A shared ecosystem of design and territory

Local and international media such as Vogue Latam, L’Officiel, Marie Claire, Le Banana, DMAG, Numéro, and Clarín covered the presentation, while the Tierra del Fuego Tourism Institute (INFUETUR) and local partners supported logistics, hospitality, and vegan gastronomy, turning the event into a bridge between fashion, innovation, and regional promotion.

As Paralelo54 and Red Int TDF noted, the collaboration also demonstrated how cross-sector partnerships can generate both creative and economic impact, positioning Ushuaia as a global destination for sustainable and avant-garde projects.

Creating from what lives

El fin del mundo, principio de todo is more than a collection: it is a manifesto about creating from life itself, from materials that grow instead of being extracted, and from a vision that sees humans as part of the ecosystem, not apart from it.

At Polybion, we believe that working with innovators like Nous Étudions expands the boundaries of material design and reminds us that sustainability begins with curiosity, collaboration, and respect for the living systems that make creation possible.