Familiarizing with fungi for the textile sector. A first-person journey into new materialist technologies, from leather to yarn

Fungi are called into action to engage in the literary debate on new materialism and sustainable technologies, proposing an alternative ontology, due to the discussions they have increasingly sparked across various disciplines in recent years. Specifically, the growing interest towards fungi and the fungal world has contaminated fashion, challenging textile research and its supply chain. The phenomenon that intertwines fungi and fashion therefore calls for a deeper understanding of their role and implications for both fashion theories and design practices. As a consequence, this interdisciplinary study aims to illustrate the main material typologies, their processing and the impacts of these tangible applications, highlighting fungal leather as a viable alternative to conventional animal leather. This study offers insights into global recent material innovations, exploring how the market and consumers perceive these next-generation materials, as well as how they adapt to the existing fashion supply chain. Framed within the new materialist theoretical perspective, which urges a return to the intrinsic material value of goods and their experiences, the study aims to enhance the entanglement among the multitude of actors in the ecological system: humans, technologies and materials. To decentralize the human perspective, this study is written in the first person by fungi (e.g. “we fungi”) and aims to provide a deeper technical comprehension of the nature of their raw material sources. We fungi advocate for being recognized not as passive resources but as active contributors to low-impact production processes, emphasizing the need for a closer dialogue between designers and material scientists.