A shiny silk tie with a chambray shirt is a no, but raw silk or the silk knit tie above ($50, brooksbrothers.com) is a yes. Think: Casual ties with modern, casual shirts—and vice versa.

Widmaier plans for Bolt to both sell raw material to clothing ... five to seven years ago.” A single tie required over 55 miles of synthesized spider-silk filament to produce.

Goats take up a bunch of space, need lots of food and take a while to produce the spider milk to make the silk. Not so with microorganisms! While the first tie off the line took close to seven ...