Photo Credit: COPPI BARBIERI
French luxury company, Hermès, has teamed up with biotechnology start-up, MycoWorks, to release a bag created with a brand new material known as Sylvania. This collaboration is three years in the making and brings together the master tanners at Hermès with the biotechnology of MycoWorks. It is the intersection of nature and biotechnology, a combination of mycelium and leather.
“We could not imagine a better partner than Hermès to present our first object made of Fine Mycelium,” says Matt Scullin, CEO of MycoWorks. “Hermès and MycoWorks share common values of craftsmanship, quality, innovation, and patience. The power of storytelling is key in any new technology or art. Hermès related to our story: that Fine Mycelium was rooted in artistic practice and craftsmanship. At the same time, Hermès recognized that MycoWorks’ unique biotechnology approach to enhancing a natural material meant that Fine Mycelium had the potential to be the highest quality mycelium in the world. Sylvania represents how nature and biotechnology can work in concert to create a material with the highest standards of quality.”
This collaboration redesigns the signature Hermès Victoria bag, born in 1997 and named after Zimbabwe’s famous waterfalls, with the Sylvania material. Sylvania begins at MycoWorks, where the Fine Mycelium is produced, and then it is handed off to the master tanners of Hermès to further refine its strength and durability. The Victoria bag in Sylvania material is made of Fine Mycelium, H Plume Canvas, and Evercalf calfskin.
Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès Artistic Director, says:
“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 maximized. With Sylvania, Hermès is at the heart of what it has always been: innovation in the making.”
