Fungi for Fashion

Social standards around fashion and appearance often cause us to not wear old garments if we think they look too old, boring, or worn out. Yet these clothing pieces are often not sold, gifted, or thrown away. This results in a lot of unused clothing that might still practically be in good shape. Especially considering that older clothing pieces often consist of higher quality materials than modern fast fashion. This project explores a simple and low-cost method of bringing these disregarded clothing pieces back to life.

Using food waste, in this case, spent coffee grounds and banana peels, a paste was created that can be painted on pieces of textile. The high nutritional nature of this paste allows for quick growth of mycelium in very specific and localized areas of the textile. When given enough time, the mycelium can add or alter the color design of the textile. Additionally, the possibility of fixing tears or holes in textiles using strong mycelium growth is explored.