Renowned in the world of luxury, French fashion house Hermès is breaking traditions and paving the way for new sustainable solutions with their latest endeavours in Mycelium leather.

Hermès have teamed up with MycoWorks, a start up company based out of California, in a partnership to develop a mushroom-derived leather alternative using their patented Fine Mycelium, creating a new material named Sylvania. Using advanced technology involving mycelium (the vegetative strands of the fungi), the mycelium components are drawn out from the roots and reproduced to create a material that imitates the properties and feel of the leather we have all grown accustomed to.

“We could not imagine a better partner than Hermès to present our first object made of Fine Mycelium. Hermès and MycoWorks share common values of craftsmanship, quality, innovation, and patience,” states Matt Scullin, MycoWorks CEO.

Through this innovation and collaborative partnership, Hermès highlights the future of fashion and the move away from leather as an appropriate material for the future. We have seen the likes of many brands exploring this lead, such as Stella McCartney, Gucci and Balenciaga having announced their partnerships with the use of another mycelium derived leather alternative, Mylo leather.

With innovation and technologies in producing non-animal leather alternatives such as vegetable and plastic leather, MycoWorks and Hermès explore the future of plant-based leathers in addressing growing consumer concerns in fashion and sustainability with Sylvania.

“The power of storytelling is key in any new technology or art. Sylvania represents how nature and biotechnology can work in concert to create a material with the highest standards of quality,” says MycoWorks CEO Matt Sculli.

With celebrity investors such as Natalie Portman and John Legend joining the conversation with their supporting investment into MycoWorks and the future of sustainable fashion technologies, Hermès and MycoWorks paves the way for a new innovation into sustainable fashion technologies in hope that others will follow.

Three years in the making, the Hermès' iconic Victoria travel bag will be the first in its installment of mycelium leather bags as an addition to the Hermès collections and will be available in stores at the end of 2021.