Sam Elsom swaps fashion for seaweed farming

• Fashion designer and photographer Sam Elsom appears to have given up fashion for seaweed farming.
• His company, Sea Forest, aims to produce commercial quantities Asparagopsis taxiformis, a variety of seaweed.
• The Asparagopsis seaweed variety has been shown to reduce methane emissions in livestock such as cattle.
• Sea Forest aims to produce 355 tonnes per year in this stage, progressing to 3,000 tonnes of seaweed in the next stage.

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Sam Elsom’s Instagram feed is looking pretty bare. The fashion designer and photographer hasn’t posted a fashion-related image on his feed since mid-2018, but following an interview with the Australian Financial Review, the reason why is clear – it’s because of seaweed. Specifically, Asparagopsis taxiformis, a variety of seaweed which has been shown in scientific tests to reduce the methane output of livestock such as cows. This means that seaweed could be a major solution to climate change.

Elsom told the AFR that he was on a conference call with Tim Flannery when he had an epiphany:

“It was doom and gloom, for sure…but there was this whole part of the message that was about solutions, and the ways we can make a difference. So I started to ring around and say: tell me about the seaweed”.

Sam Elsom

Elsom, who has designed for brands like Johdi Meares’ The Upside, MTV, General Pants Group, Quiksilver, and One Teaspoon, has founded a new company to attempt to commercially grow this miracle seaweed. The company, Sea Forest, has recently closed a funding round of $3 million and features investors including chief executive Stephen Turner, surfer Mick Fanning, and the founder of Tom’s shoes, Blake Mycoskie.