This shoe is made entirely from mushroom ‘brains’

The fashion industry uses a lot of water and creates much waste. Shoes are especially bad, with about 95% ending up in landfills. There, rubber, plastic, and foam take a very long time to break down.

A Fungal Solution for Footwear

Researchers at Belgium's Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) are looking to fungi for a solution. They teamed up with Marie De Ryck, head shoemaker at La Monnaie/De Munt opera house. Together, they created the world's first boot made entirely from mycelium. They showed this new experiment before Milan Design Week.

Mushrooms are just a small part of fungi. Below the ground, fungi connect through vast networks of mycelium. These networks share important information about rain, soil health, and sunlight. Mycologists, who study fungi, even see these webs as a form of intelligence.

Mycelial networks are already used in organic computing and mushroom-powered toilets. Now, VUB microbiologists found that these fungal roots can also form every part of a shoe. This goes further than past projects that only used mushrooms for surface materials or leather substitutes.

Crafting the Mycelium Boot

Using mycelium is not easy. It took over two years of trial and error to make the material both grow naturally and be strong. The biggest challenge was turning flat sheets of mycelia into a supportive, three-dimensional shoe sole.

Designers chose two types of fungi. One provides a foam-like, flexible sole. The other makes the shoe's leathery upper part.

Lars Dittrich, a VUB designer, explained that this boot shows what is possible with the material. He noted it addresses how to grow and craft this microorganism into a functional 3D shape.

De Ryck added that the first material samples were challenging and did not meet the needs for a complex shoe. However, she finds the progress truly inspiring.

This early prototype is a promising step towards truly sustainable footwear.