HW ENDORSES

The “green” bag movement.

Fancy a luxury bag made of… mushroom? Hermes introduces a Victoria bag made of fungi-based leather. The fabric, dubbed “Sylvania”, is created from fine mycelium, a biotech polymer derived from the fungi family.

While vegan leather is hardly novel, more and more major luxury houses are looking towards such textiles to satiate the growing market of fashion lovers who value sustainability. And when this remarkable fabric is endorsed by a premier leather expert such as Hermes, you know it can only be good.

Other eco-conscious bags that have taken off this year mostly use the repurposed, recycled and reused methods – such as Coach (Re)Loved, Prada Re-Nylon, and the bags from Gucci’s Off The Grid collection – but we can’t wait for more innovation sprouting up from the brands we love. The future of fashion is definitely looking a lot greener.

The Victoria bag in Sylvania is a hybrid of nature and biotechnology. A collaboration between Hermes and a Californian company called Mycoworks, the fabric is created using fine mycelium, the vegetative part of a fungus, which is cultivated with a patented process. It is then tanned and finished in France at Hermes’ ateliers.