In present-day Romania, a dwindling number of artisans practice what’s thought to be a centuries-old craft. They search the forest for hoof fungus, which grows within trees and sends out shelflike mushrooms a few inches wide. The fungus is pried off trunks and, with a sickle, shaved lengthwise into thin strips the color of gingerbread. Those strips are then hammered and stretched to form broad, feltlike sheets called amadou, which can be crafted into hats, bags, jewelry, and ornaments.
These products are beautiful and eco-friendly, if painstaking to forage for and create. As far back as 1903, Tlingit artisans in what is now the state of Alaska were crafting pouches out of a sturdy matlike material. A 2021 study in the journal Mycologia suggests that these “mats” were produced by the agarikon fungus, a hardy polypore native to old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. But, again, the artisans’ process was about foraging for materials, not cultivating them for mass production.
(Fungi are key to our survival. Are we doing enough to protect them?)
Today, inside a 136,000-square-foot facility in Union, South Carolina, the biotechnology company MycoWorks is pioneering a more intentional and scalable approach. Beneath dim red lighting that resembles a darkroom’s, stacks of metal trays are arranged in tall columns. Large mechanical arms whirl about, ready to pluck them individually for close inspection by a small team of technicians who wear sterile suits and examine the contents with flashlights.
Each tray is incubating mycelium, a mesh of fine filaments that, for fungi, are roughly analogous to a plant’s root system. Mycelium is a structural marvel—simultaneously soft, dense, and strong—which makes it a great potential replacement for leather. Coaxing mycelium to grow in predictable ways may be a complex task, but recent advances in biotech have opened up a cottage industry for mycotextiles.
The early efforts appear to be more ethical, environmentally sustainable, and efficient than the multibillion-dollar industry that is animal leather. And MycoWorks is just one of a wave of innovators, all of which are betting big that a better understanding of mycelium can redefine the limits of fashion and design.
MycoWorks co-founder Phil Ross has been experimenting for more than 30 years with Ganoderma, a genus of fungi that grow a lot like hoof fungus in the wild. As an artist in his San Francisco apartment, he learned how to manipulate the fungi into a range of forms: In 2009 he constructed a “teahouse” made of bricks that could be removed and brewed into tea.
Ross first considered mycological-based construction materials, but an inquiry from a shoe company in 2015 helped him and co-founder Sophia Wang refocus on fashion. The material that MycoWorks now produces is called Reishi, borrowing the Japanese word for Ganoderma. In recent years, MycoWorks products have been used in designer bags for Hermès and upscale pillows for Ligne Roset.
The low-energy operation starts with agricultural waste, like sawdust and bran, which is heated to eliminate any existing microbial life that might be competition for the fungus. Once sterilized, the substrate goes into “deep-dish, lasagna-like trays” of varying sizes, says Ross. Then Ganoderma joins the party, digesting and growing through the biomass. In some cases, fabric can be added to the tray as a scaffolding for the mycelium to weave around, creating a composite material. The sheet of mycelium is eventually peeled off the sawdust block, and growth comes to a halt. From there, it can be “tanned” to yield a material easily mistaken for traditional leather before being crafted into, say, a purse or hat.
MycoWorks CEO Matt Scullin, who has a background in materials science, praises the “wet spaghetti” structure of mycelium, which is composed of filaments—called hyphae—that entangle one another and branch off in treelike patterns while leaving empty space between the cells. The result accounts for some of Reishi’s most appealing properties. “It has a bit of a velvety touch to it,” Scullin says. “It has a bounce. It has an absorptivity to the oils and heat that emanate from your fingers when you touch it.”
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While mycelium can be grown in mechanized warehouses, Aniela Hoitink, the founder of the Dutch company Neffa, short for New Fashion Factory, uses a liquid-culture technique to create bags, crop tops, even lampshades. On a recent day, she held up a small black handbag as proof of that proprietary process. Neffa uses bioreactor tanks—basically a fermenting system similar to a brewery’s—to concoct a mycelial slurry that is strained out of the liquid and then poured onto a mold to dry into any desired form.
“You can really design from the product, rather than designing from the material,” Hoitink says, flexing and stretching the bag’s glossy black material that’s somewhere between plastic and leather, almost reminiscent of licorice. “Technically, the bottom [of the bag] needs to be the strongest. So you could say, OK, we add a little bit more biomass here so that it’s thicker and sturdier.”
This basic process allows Neffa versatility with minimal labor. Most important, Hoitink says, is that the liquid-culture process affords a freedom to experiment with speculative ideas. “Because it’s a slurry, you can add ingredients a bit easier,” she says. The company’s next step, she suggests, may be to infuse the materials with branded aromas or even skin-care compounds that treat conditions like psoriasis.
That’s just one way these products may differ from standard leather. Both companies are thinking about their eco-footprint and the complete life cycle of their goods too. MycoWorks’s Reishi, for example, is fully biodegradable—allowing for a future in which disposing of an old pair of shoes might mean simply composting it.
(Is there a better way to get rid of old clothes?)
While larger companies hope to use fungi to generate wholly new environmentally friendly materials at scale, independent designers are exploring their potential to modify or break down the planet’s extant heaps of discarded fabric. Helena Elston, a New York–based designer, was studying fashion in London a few years ago when she devised an ethical response to the waste in her industry. She finds an old garment or stitches one together with scrap material, sterilizes it, and then adds an appliqué of mycelium.
A pathogenic fungus, Ganoderma sessile feeds on the roots of deciduous hardwood trees.
Photograph by Phyllis Ma
Over the ensuing months, she’ll watch as the mycelium wends its way through the material. Sometimes it selectively eats at the natural fibers and ignores the synthetic ones. Sometimes it swirls dye into eddies of startling new color. In past experiments, Elston allowed the mycelium to break down the existing material completely. “It feels like it has this intellectual understanding that we as humans don’t have,” she says. “The most beautiful pieces have come out of me not being in control.”
Maggie Paxton, a mycophile in New York who hunts new pigments on her foraging walks, treats silk gowns with mushroom dyes for the American fashion house Coach. Recently, she took earth balls—mushrooms that resemble old golf balls, as if aged to a dull brown—and boiled them in a stockpot. She was startled to discover this dye turned her silk “the prettiest petal pink”—a color that might inspire a future collection.
Many designers still seem surprised enough by the behavior of fungi that they talk as if they’re collaborating with a vibrant, alien intelligence. “That’s the whole excitement about the field in general,” Paxton says. “We have no idea what magic is lying there right before us.” The goal is to keep finding out.
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