For years we have been promised the "Grand Soir", the emergence of "new materials" that are green, sustainable (sic), responsible (sic), even products designed and manufactured with the direct help of nature, definitely benevolent to us (the joke of the bio-design). These revolutionary advances should allow us to get out of the rut from the top, saving us, poor humans, on this planet in very bad shape. It must be said that the speech was enticing... Thanks to these advances, we would not have to question the general functioning of our societies, an ever-increasing production, a consumption which would therefore inexorably follow the same path, since from now our factories would no more be extractive and energy-intensive, they would produce, from by-products and waste, new versatile materials, goods, light, energy, assisted for this by bacteria, yeasts, fungi, insects and other spiders , in symbiosis with all living things…
    Alas! Today these startups, driven by gullible investors who above all feared missing the right train, are falling one after the other. The latest, and leading figure in the aforementioned "bio-design", the company Bold Thread, (we recommend its TedX video, quite edifying), who announced the imminent launch of a new material which would change the face of the world (a new material for a better world), the Mylo. This ersatz leather should ultimately have the same appearance, the same characteristics, the same resistance over time as leather, but it would be manufactured (cruelty free) by simple cultivation of mycelium. The incantatory speech was for years very bankable to create buzz with Stella Mc Cartney on the podiums for some happy few, a godsend also for luxury companies who could benefit from a global media commotion by highlighting a prototype watch strap or disposable shoes (too fragile to withstand the first bad weather). But this summer Bold Thread gave up the Mylo, the promise was of course not kept. This "Canada-dry" leather will never be able to meet the real market, the real constraints, the real volumes, the real production. At best, it could have been a simple drop of water in an ocean of production, consumption and therefore waste, a small anecdotal alternative which does not provide any solution.
     We cannot hope to solve a systemic problem with a few cosmetic solutions and a pinch of marketed storytelling, it is time to become aware of this.