Mycelium bag project peters out
A year on from featuring prominently in designer Stella McCartney’s anti-leather campaign at the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference, there has been more sobering news regarding mycelium material Mylo.
Ms McCartney put on display at a fringe event at COP26 clothes she had made using Mylo. She invited delegates visiting viewing her collection them to sign a petition she had drawn up calling for an end to the use of leather.
Now, though, the maker of Mylo, Bolt Threads, has announced the unsuccessful end of a project to make bags from Mylo.
It launched the project on funding platform Kickstarter, promising to design, manufacture and launch the Mylo Driver Bag, with delivery expected in October 2018. It set itself the target of raising $40,000 for the project, with people pledging enough money promised one of the bags. In the end, the project attracted 290 backers, who contributed a total investment of $72,285.
On October 17 this year, however, Bolt Threads said: “We are disappointed that we were unable to deliver the products as we’d hoped. The campaign has closed and this is the final update on the project.” It issued refunds to the backers, with the gift of smaller products made from Mylo, either a key-fob or a wallet.
The closest its supporters seem to have come to getting their hands on a Driver Bag was an announcement from the material developer that it had sent a shipment of its Mylo material to a Portland-based manufacturer of waxed-cotton bags, Chester Wallace, in November 2020, instructing it to start making the products the project had promised. About a month later, though, it said: “Regrettably, the resulting bags did not meet our standard of quality to ship.”
It said further delays owed much to covid-19 lockdowns and thanked investors for their patience, but they waited in vain.
