The Mushroom Dress and the Future of Fashion

Stand aside, meat dress! This new bit of fashion is biodegradable, easily repairable…and made of mushrooms.

Dutch textile designed Aniela Hoitink has created a dress made of mushroom mycelium, the vegetative part of mushroom fungus. Combining textile elements with the mycelium, Hoitink’s fabric is biodegradable and can be constructed specially for each individual wearing it.

“I aim to change the way we use textiles,” Hoitink says. “By altering or adding properties to textile, we can investigate how we will use textiles in the future and what the related implications will be.”

This isn’t the first time mushroom mycelium has been used in art and design. In fact, it’s been all the rage over the last few years. In 2013, Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek created a 3D-printed chair using similar material, and the winner of MoMA’s PS1 Young Architects Program in 2014 was a tower made of mycelium bricks.

Amsterdam designer Maurizio Montalti belives this is the start of a “biotechnical revolution.” One of the current research projects at his Officina Corpuscoli is a study of mycelium as a textile both for clothing design and other building projects. Mycelium, Montalti notes, can be grown just about anywhere in any type of soil, and its strength, elasticity, thickness, and water repellent nature make it ideal for a variety of projects.

Hoitink’s design takes these ideas one step further toward personalized art, making a customizable, waste-free garment that can be adjusted as needed and then composted when no longer wanted.

Inspired by observations of soft-bodied organisms that grow by replicating themselves, Hoitink built the fabric out of a repeating circular pattern molded around a body form. The dress takes shape three dimensionally, which makes it infinitely customizable.

As scientists and artists continue to experiment with all the opportunities mycelium offers, we can expect some seriously cool textiles and other forms of biodegradable art coming our way.