Mushrooms and other fashion must-haves

Aniela Hoitink’s atelier in the Dutch city of Amersfoort is not like a conventional fashion design studio. There were no sewing machines, rulers, or rags, no scissors or cutting tables. Instead, there’s a lab with incubators, microscopes, scales, and, in the second room, a 3D printer, as well as other equipment he doesn’t want to reveal.

NEFFA, the company founded by Hoitink, is at the cutting edge of the technology race to transform the textile and fashion industries. Backed by two investors and a manufacturing partner (German shoe machinery company Desma), NEFFA aims to move from pilot to demo scale this year, and to industrial scale in 2024, producing environmentally friendly materials in processes that reduce waste from cutting and sewing. .

The company is not alone. That Material Innovation Initiative estimates that the global wholesale market for next-generation materials will reach US$980 million in 2021, double the previous year’s market value, and will be valued at around US$2.2 billion in 2026. That is still only 3% of the US$70 billion materials market , but it’s big enough to attract investment into big-name names like Adidas, Puma, Hermès, and Nike, as well as automakers General machineMercedes-Benz, and BMW.

The textile industry has seen a number of technological upheavals over the years, starting with the introduction of the spinning jenny during the industrial revolution. Oil-based synthetics revolutionized materials in the postwar period—60% of all materials use polyester today. Those innovations lowered costs and increased durability, but are now a source of unwanted emissions.

The big challenge isn’t just finding sustainable materials that consumers will accept and can produce on a large scale. It also raises the creative possibility of reusing it — a challenge that requires systematic thinking about trade-offs and the impact of fast and cheap fashion. The fashion industry alone produces nearly 20% of the world’s wastewater and is responsible for between 2 and 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to United Nations. Natural fibers like cotton and wool require a lot of soil and water; and synthetic fibers, such as nylon, derived from oil, gas, or coal in energy-intensive chemical processes. Producing jeans requires about 2,000 gallons of water, more than enough to supply a person with eight glasses of drinking water per day for ten years. If nothing is done, the fashion industry will account for more than a quarter of the world’s carbon footprint by 2050.

Bring biomaterials

The solution lies in developing materials that are sustainable and biodegradable and require less input to produce. The list of biomaterials on the market or in development is long and includes source materials ranging from cacti and seaweed to pineapple, cork and flowers. Many developers focus on mushrooms. At NEFFA, mycelium, the underlying structure of the fungus, is grown in a mixture of water, sugar and minerals to make a paste which is then shaped around a 3D model based on body scans submitted by customers using a smartphone app. Results? Tailor-made seamless clothing that fits snugly and doesn’t harm the environment. “That changed everything,” says Hoitink. “It takes dozens of steps to make faux leather or leather shoes. We make it in two steps with almost zero carbon footprint.”

Bolt Threads, a biotechnology company based in Emeryville, California, formed a consortium in October 2020 with four major fashion brands—Adidas, Kering, Lululemon, and Stella McCartney—to bring its mycelium material, Mylo, to market. The partnership resulted in an Adidas concept yoga mat, handbag and shoe (not available for sale). Since then, Danish fashion label Ganni and Japan’s Tsuchiya Kaban have launched limited edition Mylo purses and bags. The Mylo shoulder bag, priced at around US$3,500, is comparable to bags from high-end labels made with conventional materials.

Brands are testing, prototyping and weighing what can make their way into the supply chain. “Continuous scale and innovation are our biggest priorities right now to bring Mylo to more consumers,” said Dan Widmaier, CEO of Bolt Threads.

Bolt Threads’ Emeryville neighbor Mycoworks raised US$125 million in 2021 and in August built a full-scale production facility in South Carolina that will enable initial production volumes of several million square feet per year of its trademark mycelium product, Reishi. Mycoworks has contracts with a number of luxury brands, including Hermès.

It’s not just the new materials, but also the manufacturing processes, that are the focus. UK’s Faber Futures, as well as TextileLab and Kukka in the Netherlands, use naturally pigmented bacteria to make chemical-free dyes. Other companies are betting on biotechnology to change the texture, structure and even color of fabrics by tinkering with the DNA of microorganism cells. Bolt Thread just partnered with Ginkgo Bioworks, which provides the basic tools for programming cells, to lower production costs.

Reusable, recyclable

Not all bio-based ingredients are always good for the environment. If you have to grow and harvest large quantities of cacti, cork, or other plants for the sole purpose of making clothing, the carbon footprint can be significant. One trick is to use waste or by-products instead of agricultural crops. Milan-based Vegea, for example, makes eco-skins from grape marc, a by-product of winemaking. Vegea has been featured in shoes, belts, and purses by Calvin Klein, bags by Tommy Hilfiger, and products from other big fashion names.

“All the wine you drink during lockdown has been turned into handbags,” said Stella McCartney, who works with several biomaterials, at the Center Pompidou in Paris in 2022 during the presentation of her fall collection. Meanwhile, brands such as Hugo Boss and Paul Smith have experimented with Piñatex, an eco-friendly leather made primarily from excess pineapple leaves.

Using waste or by-products touches on the larger recycling question. Making the garment industry more sustainable is not only about manufacturers but also about changing consumer behavior, according to Alexander Bismarck, professor of materials chemistry at the University of Vienna. “Wearing a polyester coat for six years probably has the same C0₂ footprint like wearing one of the recycled fibers for six months,” he says. “So the question is, how long are you willing to wear your clothes for?”

According to the United Nations, the average consumer buys 60% more off today’s clothing than 15 years ago, and using only half as much of each item. That means we throw away more clothes than we know what to do with, as the piles of used clothes washing up on African beaches prove. According to one estimate, the average British consumer keeps their clothes for only 2.2 years. Another survey showed clothes being thrown after being worn only seven times. Worldwide, a truckload of textiles is either stockpiled or burned every second, according to the European Commission’s strategy paper on sustainable textiles. The paper predicts that clothing and footwear consumption is expected to increase by 63% by 2030, making recycling a more pressing imperative than ever.

In one promising development, recycling cotton into more than rags has become feasible in recent years through technological breakthroughs. Simco Spinning & Textiles Ltd. has taken cutting waste from garment manufacturers, shredded it, and spun it into Cyclo’s trademark yarn. This thread is still blended with other fibers, such as recycled polyester, viscose and acrylic, but there is at least 50% recycled cotton in the final product.

Several companies have recently taken it a step further. Renewcell turns textile waste, such as worn jeans or production waste, into pulp that can be used to make viscose and other regenerated fibers that can serve as substitutes for pure cotton. Swiss company HeiQ AeoniQ makes yarn from different raw materials cellulose and bacteria in a process that releases oxygen and captures five tons of carbon for every ton of yarn. With the help of investors such as Hugo Boss and Lycra Company, HeiQ AeoniQ is operating a pilot plant with a capacity of 100 tons per year and is planning a giga-factory for 2025.

Transparency and truth

Regulators are also pushing for higher standards from manufacturers. In March 2022, the European Union, one of the world’s largest textile markets, with imports of US$80 billion, published a strategy paper which proposes binding requirements for durability, recyclability, and recycled fiber content, as well as a ban on disposal of unsold or returned textiles. The European Commission, which published the paper, will also review eco-labeling (a label that describes the environmentally friendly content of a garment) and the use of plastic polymers in apparel, and is considering introducing digital labels that describe an item’s environmental impact. This move was driven by research published in 2020 which revealed that 39% of sustainability claims by companies in the textile, garment and shoe industries could be false or deceptive.

The company took action. Adidas, for one, aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2025, 30% by 2030, and achieve climate neutrality across operations by 2050. H&M announced a commitment to use only recycled or sustainably sourced materials by 2030, while Patagonia’s goal is to eliminate sourcing virgin petroleum from supply chains by 2025. What these companies say about their progress toward achieving this goal may need to be quickly independently verified and printed on labels.

What is clear is that the push to invest in producing sustainable materials on a large scale will continue. As Bismarck said, “Biomanufacturing has a bright future. The kinks are being worked on. It is a matter of time and money.”