Mogu launched the new biomaterial EPHEA, as part of Balenciaga’s Winter 2022 runway show

After years of technological development as part of MOGU’s R&D unit, the company launches EPHEA™️, a new materials’ family produced through fermentation-based proprietary processes, targeting the alternative leather market starting from applications in Fashion.

Balenciaga’s Winter 2022 runway show ©Balenciaga

Mogu Srl, the Italian material innovation Company known for its bio- fabricated and circular products for interior architecture and green building, has announced today the launch of EPHEA™️. The announcement follows EPHEA’s first market launch, which took place yesterday as part of Balenciaga’s Winter 2022 runway show, at Paris Fashion Week, during which the brand has presented an unprecedented floor-length coat realised with EPHEA™️.

EPHEA™️ is a new materials’ family with premium quality and unique features, making it suitable for applications in Fashion, while expressing endless opportunities for multiple other markets.

EPHEA™️ quality is based on the proprietary, fermentation-based, production process, which allows for consistent, reproducible, and stable properties, and for overall homogeneity in regard to aspects such as colour, density, composition, and thickness. Furthermore, EPHEA™️ raw materials are characterised by high reactivity to reagents (i.e., green chemistry) allowing for effective transformation and overall stabilisation into fully versatile products.

Thanks to the prestigious partnerships activated with tanneries, manufacturers, and brands, EPHEA™️ has been validated and recognised as the leading mycelium-based alternative, suitable to be employed for the creation of high-end fashion products. Such validation has now culminated in Balenciaga’s runway launch on March 6, 2022.

In line with the launch of EPHEA™️, the Company has also introduced its further evolution, happening thanks to the creation of SQIM.

SQIM has been structured as a technology holding, currently serving its two verticals, MOGU (interior architecture & green building) and EPHEA™️ (alternative leather), with the aim of further widening along time the multiple opportunities emerging from R&D activities, and therefore expanding on the true potential of mycelium-based technologies in concretely impacting additional fields and markets, thereby creating a real positive impact in people’s life.

Stefano Babbini, CEO of Mogu Srl, declares: “It is an absolute privilege to finally be able to introduce EPHEA™️ to the global community. Our teams have been working very hard since more than 5 years, driven by the purpose of raising the standard of mycelium flexible materials, for delivering a truly concrete impact in industry”, while he continues: “Naturally, EPHEA™️ is also the outcome of well-established partnerships, which are fully coherent with our positioning in the European leather and alternative leather industries, through overall integration within the related value chains. SQIM, as Mogu’s biotech evolution, will allow to globally boost such opportunities, driven by the same mission that we established upon our foundation: to shorten the gap between Humans and Nature, by delivering innovative materials and products with high added value, as achieved thanks to Nature-based processes and technologies, at industrial scale.”