Hermès creates the first handbag in sustainable vegan leather from mushrooms

For the Fall Winter 2021 2022 accessories’ collection Hermès renews the “Victoria” handbag model in collaboration with the company MycoWorks.

Lily-Ross Depp wears a “Victoria” bag

In the world of fashion, the attention paid to the environment and the consumer is increasingly unique. And Hermès, who for years has created it-bags in the finest leather deriving from the animal world, this time decides to focus everything on the sustainable innovation. The fashion house collaborated with MycoWorks, a start-up based in San Francisco and founded in 2013 by two artists passionate about mycology , Sophia Wang and Phil Ross, which creates vegan leatherette materials deriving from “Reishi” mushrooms.

The “Victoria” it-bag by Hermès is made in the new “Sylvania” version, a similar leather version that offers a golden brick on a smooth surface that reminiscent the rise of mushroom. The “Sylvania” hybrid effect is obtained from the innovative “Fine Mycelium” process, that blends the classic textile leather tanning process with a bio-vegan technology. The organic fungal material obtained from the roots, is water-repellent, non-toxic and biodegradable.

Matt Scullin, CEO of MycoWorks, says: “We could not have imagined a better partner than Hermès to present our first object made in Fine Mycelium. Hermès and MycoWorks share common values of craftsmanship, quality, innovation and patience. Sylvania is the result of a shared vision to grow the future of materials and a research to unlock new design possibilities; it represents how nature and biotechnology can work together to create a material with the highest quality standards.”

Priced around 5,000€, the new “Victoria” version will be available at the end of the year. Surely, all these materials will remain elitist in nature, due to the understandable and immense workmanship behind them, but as CEO Matt Scullin said it is certainly an excellent starting point for a fashion future more green.

However, Hermès is not the first luxury artisan fashion house to experiment with new vegan versions of tanning, as well MycoWorks is not the first young company to revisit leather in an organic version. In the innovative textile sector, there are numerous start-up that are using raw materials to create leather-like materials, eco-waxes and textile fibers. Among the best known there are Piñatex, a 100% biodegradable material made with pineapple’s waste from the Philippines, or Wineleather, a cruelty-free similar leather from wine’s waste.

Another example is Orange Fiber, a Sicilian start-up that produces textile fibers from the waste of squeezing oranges to create sustainable fabrics thanks to the presence of cellulose in citrus. Orange Fiber is known for its collaboration with Salvatore Ferragamo in 2017, when during the Earth Day they created a ready-to-wear capsule inspired 360 degrees to Mediterranean.

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Priscilla Cafaggi

Priscilla è una fashion editor laureata in storia della moda. Ama il vintage, il minimalismo… in poche parole una persona eclettica. Infatti, se dovesse scegliere due persone per andare a cena fuori sarebbero Jil Sander e Alessandro Michele.