DRESSING WITH MUSHROOMS

Producing animal skin to make purses and shoes is one of the activities with the highest environmental impact in the world, because of intensive farming, tanning and employment of artificial . Then, there's a very big water consumption and air pollutant emissions. But often synthetic alternatives have some problems in the disposal.

But, from Italy here comes Muskin, a vegetal skin derived from the processing of a parasitic mushroom, the Phellinus ellipsoideus, that grows in the wild in Brazil and attacks the trees in the subtropical forests.
It can be treated in the same way as the animal one, except for the tanning which is completely vegetable.

Muskin is a 100 % vegetable layer alternative to animal leather, completely non-toxic.
The total absence of toxic substance makes Muskin ideal for the use in close-to-skin applications and thanks to its very natural origin it limits bacteria proliferation, because it's able to absorb the moisture and then release it.
Muskin is really similar to the suede, but it's softer.

Now it's produced and sold in small quantities that are appropriate for small series production. You can see here some products.