French luxury house Hermès has partnered with biomaterials company MycoWorks to reimagine its Victoria shopper bag in a leather alternative grown from mycelium.
The bag will be available from the end of this year and features amber-coloured panels made of mycelium ? the thread-like filament structure of fungi.
These sheets are tanned and finished by Hermès tanneries in France, much like real leather, to imitate its look and feel from the wrinkling all the way to the subtle colour gradient.
The Victoria bag has two panels made from Sylvania mycelium leather
Called Sylvania, the resulting material was created as part of a three-year collaboration between MycoWorks and Hermès to fine-tune mycelium leather for use in a commercially available luxury product. With the release of the Victoria bag, Hermès joins other major fashion houses in the race to find a viable, non-plastic alternative to animal leather, due to the increasing environmental and ethical concerns.
Last October, Adidas, Stella McCartney, Lululemon and Gucci's parent company Kering announced that they were investing in another mycelium-based alternative called Mylo, with the first products made from the material expected this year.
The leather alternative was created by biomaterials company MycoWorks
Mycelium has proven a popular avenue for biomaterial companies, due to its structure that can be grown to fill almost any desired shape.
MycoWorks claims that, unlike other mushroom leathers, its version does n...