Fungal leather: The next great trend in sustainable fashion?
The biotechnological startup based in San Francisco, California, Mycows, has been working on an alternative to the fungus leather and is already in a position to be able to take it on a commercial scale.
With the support of the French luxury design house Hermès, the company has shown that it is able to maintain the quality of the desired products.
Mycows has received funds worth $ 125 million that will use to build a new production plant in South Carolina.
The vegan alternative to leather made from fungi is a material composed of fine mycelium known as Reishi.Financing will make Reishi more easily available for brands that want to take the sustainable path.
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Mycows will collaborate with high -end brands, one of which is Hermès.For the first collaboration between the two brands, Mycows personalized the Hermès Victoria bag in 2021 with its Sylvania material.There will be many more high -level collaborations soon according to Matt Scullin, Executive Director of Mycows.
Reishi, who is a fine mycelium, is elaborated from the root structure of fungi.This structure is used to make a customizable material that feels like an animal's leather.In addition to texture, it is also said that the durability of alternative leather is similar to that of animal leather.
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Because the material is customizable, the texture can be modified according to buyer preferences, including the width and changing touch of the material.Among the startup investors are Grammy winning singer John Legend and the winning actress of the Natalie Portman Academy Award.
The fashion world is heading towards more sustainable and vegan alternatives to leather and Mycows tries to provide exactly what the market wants.However, it is not an unspecified space.
Recently, Gucci developed its own vegan leather called Demetra that they used in their Ace Sneakers footwear and will soon be available for the rest of the world.Stella McCartney, a brand that is already associated with sustainable luxury, works with the mylo material developed by Bolt Thread.
