As the fashion industry faces pressure to become more sustainable, many companies are turning to one of the promising leather alternatives on the market: mushroom leather. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not just fringe fashion. In March 2021, the French luxury goods company \u200b\u200bHerm\u00e8s released a new version of its popular $5,000 Victoria duffle bag that\u2019s made from mycelium \u2014 the thread-like fungal roots that grow underneath mushrooms. The fungus leather shares common traits with animal leather: durability, strength, aesthetics, and feel. But the differences in environmental impact are stark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The majority of leather products come from cattle, which are one of the world\u2019s top greenhouse gas emitters<\/a>, mainly through belching methane. And while most cattle are raised and slaughtered for beef and dairy products, leather helps sustain the industry, and the leather tanning process can release toxic chrome into the water supply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a cattle byproduct or coproduct, the supply of leather doesn\u2019t necessarily follow demand \u2014 an economic effect that\u2019s led fashion companies to incorporate more plastics into leathers, which also damages the environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[Leather is] a supply chain that doesn\u2019t scale.” <\/p>Matthew L. Scullin, CEO of MycoWorks<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe fashion industry can\u2019t just say, \u201cHey, I\u2019m going to turn up a knob this year, we need more leather so I\u2019m going to find more leather.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Founded in 2013, MycoWorks is a California-based company that uses mycelium to produce sustainable materials. The startup is one in a growing field that believes the best way to curb the fashion industry\u2019s environmental footprint is through fungi \u2014 a vast kingdom of diverse and largely mysterious organisms that account for 25% of all biomass worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fungus kingdom is estimated to comprise more than 3.5 million species, of which the vast majority remain undiscovered. When most people imagine fungi, they picture a mushroom, like grocery-store white mushrooms, portabella caps, or the red and white Amanita muscaria variety found in Super Mario. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mushrooms are the fleshy, fruiting body of a fungus. People use the non-toxic varieties not only as a nutrient-rich food source, but also as psychedelics, medicine, and a natural form of pest control. In the fungus kingdom, however, the mushrooms we see above ground are just the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often called \u201cthe hidden kingdom,\u201d the bulk of fungal activity occurs underground or out of sight. The main role of fungi is decomposition. And it was an incomplete understanding of that role that caused taxonomists to label fungi as plants for centuries. It wasn\u2019t until 1969 that the ecologist Robert Whittaker proposed separating them from plants and animals into their own kingdom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The main difference between fungi and the other two kingdoms centers on food. Plants produce their own food through photosynthesis, while animals eat and digest food in the environment. Fungi take a unique approach<\/a>: Mycelium spreads from mushrooms and secretes enzymes onto a food source, such as a fallen tree branch or an animal carcass. These enzymes break down the matter so that the mycelium can absorb it as energy. By decomposing nature for billions of years, fungi and their vast networks of mycelium have helped maintain an ecological equilibrium that\u2019s enabled the other two kingdoms to thrive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It turns out that the way mycelium networks naturally grow and expand can be exploited to create sustainable materials, from a mushroom leather jacket to structures far more complex. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Mushroom leather has been used as a leather alternative for nearly a decade. The process involves growing mycelium, which naturally forms a solid foam that can be compressed into a material that resembles leather. But this technique limits producers\u2019 ability to customize for specific traits, which makes most mycelium leather inferior to animal leather. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe mysterious world of fungi <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Using mycelium in fabric production <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n