Hermès to make vegan leather handbags from mushrooms – luxury company soon to launch lab-grown material Sylvania
- The French luxury leather goods company will be debuting its Victoria bag at the end of the year
- It will use a vegan leather made from mushroom threads called mycelium, as well as calfskin and canvas
Hermès – the French leather-goods house known for its exclusive Birkin and Kelly bags in luxurious materials like ostrich and crocodile leather that can sell for upwards of US$400,000 at auction – is releasing its first handbag in a mushroom-derived, leather-like material grown in a lab.
The Parisian brand has partnered with California-based start-up MycoWorks, which has patented a process to transform mycelium, a network of threads from the root structure of mushrooms, into a leather-like material.
According to fashion trade publication The Business of Fashion, the brand’s Victoria travel bag will be made of canvas, calfskin and “Sylvania”, a mushroom-derived, amber-hued material. The bag will be available by the end of the year.
Hermès artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas said in a statement to The Business of Fashion: “MycoWorks’ vision and values echo those of Hermès: a strong fascination with natural raw material and its transformation, a quest for excellence, with the aim of ensuring that objects are put to their best use and that their longevity is maximised. With Sylvania, Hermès is at the heart of what it has always been: innovation in the making.”
While rooted in tradition, Hermès, which still makes its leather goods in workshops throughout France, was the first luxury brand to partner with Apple back in 2015, when it created a leather strap for the Apple Watch.