Four experts on what excites them about the evolution of sustainable materials

For luxury fashion houses, stepping up sustainability efforts is essential—and many are eyeing materials as a way to do so. LVMH-owned Fendi, for example, recently vowed to eliminate fur from its lineup and is working with Central Saint Martins and Imperial College London to develop lab-grown fur.

• Dolce & Gabbana also announced that it would stop using fur, with plans to work on creating “a sustainable faux-fur alternative that uses recycled and recyclable materials.”

Leather alternatives have also become trendy, with mycelium leather—made out of mushroom roots—already being used by sustainability-conscious labels like Stella McCartney and Ganni.

Now, as the hunt for the next big sustainable material marches on, Retail Brew spoke to four experts about what excites them about where the industry is going. Here are the takeaways.

Filling in: While PJ Smith, director of fashion policy at the Humane Society shouted out the aforementioned mushroom leather—the key being “scaling these technologies, so that they’re readily available in the marketplace.”

• Smith said he’s also excited about how silk is evolving to become more sustainable.

“I also know that alternatives [that are] biodegradable are taking off,” he told us. “That’s going to be something that we’re not even going to see—we’re not going to recognize that transition. It’s just like, one day, all our puffers are going to be filled with more sustainable and animal-friendly alternatives.”

Mass appeal: Lizzie Horvitz, CEO and founder of Finch, a digital sustainability tool, believes luxury brands can help pave the way for the mainstream.

“We’re really excited about what the fashion houses are doing. The very high-end ones have the resources to test this out in the market,” she explained. “Regardless of the specific technology, when people who buy from LVMH are getting on board, that means that it can trickle down to all levels of fashion…Because if LVMH can do it, that means that H&M will be able to do it in five years, and it becomes more accessible, really, to everybody.”

Nature calls: August Rust, a research assistant at the Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons, meanwhile, raised some questions. “In terms of scalability, we’re not going to see these plant-based, vegan bio-leathers scaled to [an] extent for a long time,” they said. What Rust is really interested in, they noted, is “the resurgence of natural fibers as something that has the ability to be completely widespread.”

• They said hemp fabric has been “having a major moment,” as is abaca, a banana fiber.

“I have more faith in those being the solutions—just in terms of fitting into current recycling infrastructure, and doing all the things we needed to do and our current systems.”

Final word: Stacy Flynn, co-founder and CEO of Evrnu, a textile innovations startup, said she believes materials is “an incredibly ripe area for disruption”—though she admitted that, “in terms of which ones are going to make it, which ones aren’t, the verdict is still out.”

Still, she laid out Evrnu co-founder and president Christopher Stanev’s four rules for innovation: “The quality has to be the same or better at scale, otherwise, there’s no reason to move to something new. The price has to be the same or better quality at scale. Everything we make has to come back and be recycled. [And] everything should work on existing equipment as much as possible until we’re ready to make the investments and start looking at divesting in the equipment,” Flynn said.

“If we follow those rules, then you’ve got something that is commercially viable. The companies that are working within those parameters are the ones that are going to be able to capture a sizable portion of the market.”