Is This the Beginning of the End for Leather?

Brands including Stella McCartney, Balenciaga and Hermès are making products from mushroom-based material. BoF’s chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent details the forces pushing next-gen fabrics like mycelium leather forward — and whether the much-hyped sustainability solution has a future in fashion.

Background: 

After years of experimentation and development, handbags, shoes and coats made of mycelium leather — created from the roots of mushrooms — are hitting the shelves from names like Stella McCartney, Balenciaga and Hermès. It’s a test of whether mycelium leather will make it in the mainstream. Made by start-ups like Bolt Threads and MycoWorks, mycelium is promising for fashion as brands seek out non-plastic, non-animal-based, less-energy-intensive leather alternatives and consumers demand more environmentally friendly products. But taking an idea from the lab to the store floor involves a lot of trial and error. 

Key Insights: 

• Though the space is gaining momentum as brands bring products to market and start-ups attract investment, most items are still limited-edition or very expensive. To gain mainstream traction, companies need to scale up and prices need to go down. Much depends on how brands’ first experiments perform.  
• If all goes well, the market for alternative materials could be worth $2.2 billion by 2026. 

Additional Resources: 

• Fashion’s Race for New Materials — Download the Case Study: Brands are pursuing a raft of initiatives to adopt recycled textiles, regeneratively farmed cotton and mushroom-based leather, but giving fashion’s major materials a sustainability makeover still requires billions of dollars worth of investments and deeper, longer-term commitments to scale. 
• Luxury’s Latest Battleground: Material Science: Armed with extensive patent portfolios, Bolt Threads, Modern Meadow, MycoWorks, Natural Fiber Welding and others are targeting luxury brands with alternative materials.

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