Hermès Is Designing A Bag With Lab-Grown ‘Leather’ Made From Mushrooms
Image via TungCheung / Shutterstock.com
Luxury brand Hermès is breaking traditions by experimenting with a mushroom-based alternative leather.
The brand will be testing the plant-based leather on its Victoria travel bag, which will also include canvas and elements of calfskin.
The inclusion of calfskin in the bag means that the product will not be entirely vegan. However, it is a large step towards change and innovation in the fashion industry.
The vegan leather, called Sylvania, is an amber-colored material that Hermès developed with California-based startup MycoWorks, which created a patented process to turn mycelium—a network of threads from the root structure of mushrooms—into a material that mimics the properties of conventional leather, per The Business of Fashion.
The Sylvania material is completely plant-based and grown in a lab. Skilled tanners then tan and finish the Hermès vegan leather in France to refine its overall strength and durability.
“MycoWorks’ vision and values echo those of Hermès: a strong fascination with natural raw material and its transformation, a quest for excellence, with the aim of ensuring that objects are put to their best use and that their longevity is maximized,” Hermès artistic director, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, said in a statement. “With Sylvania, Hermès is at the heart of what it has always been: innovation in the making.”
Through this partnership, the French luxury brand is also highlighting its awareness of how today’s audience is more conscious about what brands represent.
The Victoria travel bag will be available in stores end of 2021. The brand clarifies that the Sylvania will serve as an alternative, instead of a replacement to its animal leather goods, per BoF.
[via Veg News, cover image via TungCheung / Shutterstock.com]
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