Ephea

Redefining fashion with the magic of mycelium.

Our brand name - ephea™ - is inspired by "hyphae," the filamentous cells that make up fungal . By adopting mycelium as our engineering and manufacturing platform, we create ephea™, a unique class of naturally grown materials with superior properties, suitable for fashion applications, such as Leather Goods or Ready-to-Wear items.

Thanks to the remarkable chemistry that are capable of, partnering with mycelium allows to transition productive operations from an exploitative to a generative paradigm. Driven by , ephea™ actively contributes to informing the – join our journey and be part of the change!

💥Launching ephea™ AURA💥

We’re excited to unveil our latest innovation - ephea™ AURA, the highest quality mycelium material for the fashion industry. Crafted from mycelium, AURA offers luxurious sophistication with groundbreaking environmental performance.

Curious to learn more?

Download ephea™ AURA’s product sheet at https://www.ephea.bio/, and make sure to join us at Première Vision Paris to experience ephea™ AURA firsthand.

📅 2-4 July 2024
📍 Hall 6 - Smart Creation - Booth 6S4

Discover the Future of Fashion! Join us at Première Vision Paris for the launch of ephea™ latest breakthrough in sustainable fashion.

📅 2-4 July 2024 📍 Première Vision Paris, Hall 6 - Smart Creation - Booth 6S4

Are you a design professional with consolidated skills in regard to the development of high-end creative contents (i.e., visual/copy)? Are you strongly driven by the desire of contributing to create the most positive impact possible at both environmental and social levels?

If so, you could possibly soon be our new team member at 🍄

Have a look at this unique job offering, share it with your network, and apply before it's too late! We look forward to receiving your application at [email protected]

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LOOKING BACK AT BIOFABRICATE 2024
 
What an inspiring atmosphere 2024, the unique yearly summit where design meets biology/biotech, which took place last week in Paris (FR).
 
All together, three days of groundbreaking discussions and visionary insights, within a truly unique space, exploring the intersection of biomaterials and bioingredients, primarily addressing the Fashion and Beauty markets through a united lens of biotech and bioinnovation.
 
Big thanks to Suzanne Lee, Amy Congdon, PhD, and the entire Biofabricate Team (including all the amazing volunteers), not to mention all the innovators, speakers, moderators, investors, and attendees who joined and nurtured the event, as well as all sponsors and industry representatives, such as and their brands (among multiple others joining too) who’ve made it all possible
 
At SQIM we feel deeply grateful to be in the privileged position of actively driving change through the introduction of virtuous processes ad products ( ), informing a renewed material culture, rooted in cooperation, transparency, trust, ingenious vision, and ultimately quality.
 
It’s been 10 years since the first edition of Biofabricate in New York, lots has happened since then and we could now start seeing concrete advancements impacting the everyday. We cannot wait to keep responsibly contributing to this collective journey and to witness what the next 10 years will bring about in regard to the ever needed Material Re-evolution that the world we live in is so desperately in need for.
 
As it is only by working together that we can truly achieve a different present-future.

Thank you, Biofabricate, and thank you All!
 
 
         

SQIM // FUTURE FABRICS EXPO 2023

We are thrilled to announce that SQIM will be showcasing its groundbreaking and high-quality class of innovative mycelium materials - ephea™️ - as part of the prestigious Future Fabrics Expo 2023, taking place in London from June 26th to June 28th, 2023.

ephea's participation in the Futere Fabrics Expo underlines our serious commitment to keep driving our incredible innovation journey, allowing for introducing truly responsible solutions in the Fashion industry and beyond.

Discover our booth at Future Fabrics Expo if you’re trying to elevate your designs while consistently reducing your environmental impact, and if you wish to be active part of a key movement shaping the future of fashion.

Join us and be part of the movement that reshapes the future of fashion.

We look forward to meeting you soon!

Register now at the link in our bio.

SQIM // ChangeNOW 2023 - Conference: Reimagining Fashion

Join us on 26th May at 12 AM as part of the rich 2023’s program, where we’ll be on stage contributing to the panel discussion “REIMAGINING FASHION”.

SQIM’s co-founder and Chief Mycelium Officer, Maurizio Montalti will be in conversation with other key players such as Laura Hayes (.labs ), Solomon Noi (Accra Metropolitan Assembly), Elizabeth Ricketts ( ), and Barbara Trachte (Brussels-Capital Region).

The panel will be moderated by Abigail Carroll ( )

Discover more and book your ChangeNOW 2023 tickets by clicking the linkinbio.

SQIM // ChangeNOW 2023 - Conference: Reimagining Fashion

Join us on 26th May at 12 AM as part of the rich ChangeNOW 2023’s program, where we’ll be on stage contributing to the panel discussion “REIMAGINING FASHION”.

SQIM’s co-founder and Chief Mycelium Officer, Maurizio Montalti will be in conversation with other key players such as Laura Hayes (.labs ), Solomon Noi (Accra Metropolitan Assembly), Elizabeth Ricketts ( ), and Barbara Trachte (Brussels-Capital Region).

The panel will be moderated by Abigail Carroll

Discover more and book your ChangeNOW 2023 tickets by clicking the linkinbio.

SQIM // ChangeNOW 2023

Come and join us at 2023 // PARIS 25 – 27 MAY 2023

ChengeNOW is a three-day event taking place at Grand Palais Ephémère, bringing together the key innovators and drivers of change, and the most positively disruptive solutions, allowing for collectively tackling our most urgent contemporary challenges at global scale.

In partnership with , SQIM will be on show with
ephea™, its innovative category of high-quality bio-fabricated materials made from pure mycelium.

ChangeNOW is the largest event of solutions for the planet, aiming to accelerate the socio-environmental and social transition
by building connections between entrepreneurs, business leaders and policymakers.

Discover more at the linkinbio!

SQIM // Fashion our Future Podcast

Make sure not to miss the 4th episode of “Fashion our Future” - When Fashion meets tech.

Featuring Montalti (SQIM’s Chief Mycelium Officer and co-founder) Suzanne Lee (founder and CEO of ), and .helgason, (co-founder and CEO ), this episode explores a new range of disruptive technologies and biomaterials, including ephea – the superior quality products created with mycelium, today primarily dedicated to Luxury fashion.

The podcast, hosted and moderated by French journalist , is brought to you by and investigates, over the course of five episodes, the solutions to make the fashion and luxury industries more sustainable and circular.

You can listen to “The Fashion meets tech” episode by clicking the linkinbio!

Third image: Balenciaga coat realised with ephea, photo courtesy of BALENCIAGA

SQIM // ephea wins the ANDAM Fashion Innovation Award 2023

We’re thrilled to announce that SQIM, with and its unprecedented class of biofabricated materials - ephea™ - won the prestigious ANDAM innovation Award 2023

This is for us a truly important milestone, contributing to prove that by partnering with Nature through biofabrication-driven processes, it is possible to deliver truly responsible yet highly functional and innovative products, that allow matching sustainability, technical performance, and aesthetics, as key ingredients to drive effective positive impact.

The comes with a reward of 100.000 EUR that will be dedicated to continuing progressing through our R&D activities and overall journey of industrialisation of our disruptive technologies and products, to allow delivering the most superior class of mycelium-based materials on market on a global scale.

ephea™ // Reduced use of Water

ephea™ is the result of a unique biofabrication process requiring minimal inputs. This is also the case when looking at the amount of water needed for growing ephea™ raw materials.

In a world where the industrial production of leather and textile materials make use of very large quantities of water, growing ephea materials (i.e., mycelium) contributes to greatly save precious hydric resources, as the growing process requires just enough water to maintain appropriate humidity along the short growth cycle.
Keep following us to find out more!

ephea ™ // Wearing Mycelium – The Trench Coat

ephea™ Capsule Collection Prototypes // Wearing Mycelium – The Trench Coat

ephea™ and Bond Factory worked together for the development of a mycelium-based capsule collection composed by four Ready-To-Wear articles.

Co-created by means of fungal fermentation processes and advanced digital technologies for manufacturing, the capsule collection items, including the ephea Trench Coat, are unique pieces (non-commercial) demonstrating the effective viability in utilising our groundbreaking technologies and the resulting advanced materials, for the development of outstandingly innovative fashion garments.

The capsule collection has been developed within the framework of the EMYCLOTH project (project n. 00216), funded by , an initiative of the European Union seeking to support textile, clothing, leather, and footwear (TCLF) SMEs in enhancing their competitiveness while helping them integrating new technologies in innovative or high added-value products, processes, or services.

Picture: Trench Coat realised with ephea™ materials and digital fabrication techniques.

Photography by
Styling by .segato

ephea™ // Minimal CO2 Emissions

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide emissions have increasingly risen in the most dramatic way, and are today one of the main causes responsible for climate warming, the loss of biodiversity, and all related environmental disruptions.

Producing conventional materials (either extractive, or animal-derived ones) requires significant use of virgin input resources and causes remarkably high CO2 emissions, also and particularly due to the nature of the related industrial processes.

Growing ephea™ contributes to majorly limit such dreadful impact.
As in fact, by fermenting low-value feedstock from the agro-industry, mycelium is capable of sequestering carbon, keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere, while breaking some of the stored carbon into carbohydrates, which can act as nutrients for the soil at the end of life of the product, for the generation of new life., as in a well-balanced ecosystem.

ephea™ // Sensuous Sophistication

By fusing the unique skills of our microbial partners – fungal mycelia- with our advanced bio-technological capabilities, SQIM is today capable of fully customizing ephea™ products to fully meet customers' needs.

Our production processes are driven by highly responsible steps and ingredients. As an example, we make use of the most responsible dyes available in the market, to obtain vibrantly colored ephea™ materials, while preventing leakage of chemicals in water bodies and in the larger ecosystem.

This all, while incorporating elegance and sensuality in our ephea™ materials, as expressed through their unique touch and bespoke aesthetics. Hence, allowing for the combination of truly responsible, high-quality materials with the most refined material’s character and the sensation that it elicits.

Keep following us to find out more.

ephea™ // Sensuous Sophistication

By fusing the unique skills of our microbial partners – fungal mycelia- with our advanced bio-technological capabilities, SQIM is today capable of fully customizing ephea™ products to fully meet customers' needs.

Our production processes are driven by highly responsible steps and ingredients. As an example, we make use of the most responsible dyes available in the market, to obtain vibrantly colored ephea™ materials, while preventing leakage of chemicals in water bodies and in the larger ecosystem.

This all, while incorporating elegance and sensuality in our ephea™ materials, as expressed through their unique touch and bespoke aesthetics. Hence, allowing for the combination of truly responsible, high-quality materials with the most refined material’s character and the sensation that it elicits.

Keep following us to find out more.

ephea™ // When innovation meets nature

There’s no doubt that biotechnology will play a major role in contributing to preserving our planet.

It’s indeed partly a fact: Biotechnology is already in an exceptional position to allow replacing polluting chemical materials and processes with increasingly sustainable, biological alternatives.

At SQIM, biotechnology meets design; by harnessing the uniquely advanced skills, features and opportunities expressed by fungal mycelium, our responsible processes are key for creating ephea™, our stand-alone class of flexible materials (…not to be considered just leather replacements), setting new standards, thanks to the unprecedented values, functionalities and overall opportunities provided by mycelium-based biofabrication.

Employing Nature as the ultimate engineering and manufacturing platform and biotechnology, SQIM leverages on billions of years of evolution to create the ephea™ re-evolution, as driven by Design.

ephea ™ // Wearing Mycelium – The Trench Coat

Co-created by means of fungal fermentation processes and advanced digital technologies for manufacturing, ephea™ and Bond Factory have recently developed, prototyped, and presented a truly unique, mycelium-based capsule collection.

In the picture: Trench Coat details realised with ephea™ materials and digital fabrication techniques.

The (non-commercial) collection is entirely made of ephea, even the tiniest details.

Buttons and other finishes have been in fact also released with ephea mycelium materials; this, thanks to SQIM expertise and to Bond factory advanced technologies, granting the chance to achieve outstanding results even when it comes to the finest details.

The released capsule collection allows brands and overall customers to get acquainted with the most powerful alternative for a novel and ethically responsible way for creating fashion items.

The capsule collection has been developed within the framework of the EMYCLOTH project (project n. 00216), funded by , an initiative of the European Union seeking to support textile, clothing, leather, and footwear (TCLF) SMEs in enhancing their competitiveness while helping them integrating new technologies in innovative or high added-value products, processes, or services.

Keep following us to discover more about this unique piece of garment!

Photography by
Styling by .segato

ephea™ // Waste Reduction

The fermentation-based technology developed for producing EPHEA offers unprecedented opportunities in regard to challenging the notion of “waste”.

Starting from a completely biological process, EPHEA raw materials are grown by allowing selected fungi to harness valuable nutritious compounds from low-value, agro-industrial feedstock. Hence, valorising organic substrates that are often considered “waste”, to create fully organic and biodegradable raw products.
Such circular approach is at the base of the (re-)generative opportunity that EPHEA materials offer. This, as opposed to traditional production processes based on extraction and overall exploitation of finite resources, and the related generation of waste and pollution.

Furthermore, EPHEA materials can be produced according to desired shapes and sizes, to avoid generating waste along post-processing (e.g. cut-out scraps from pattern-making).

Once harvested, EPHEA materials are further treated for overall stabilisation and finishing by means of highly innovative and responsible processes rooted in green chemistry, with no use of heavy metals or toxic compounds, taking place in dedicated facilities designed to prevent the dispersion of any potentially dangerous effluent in the ecosystem.

In such way, EPHEA feasibly demonstrates effective possibilities for the creation of a more virtuous supply chain in Fashion & beyond, as characterised by a consistently reduced impact.

ephea™ // Reduced use of water

ephea™ is the result of a unique biofabrication process requiring minimal inputs. This is the case also when looking at the amount of water needed for growing ephea™ raw materials.

In a world where the industrial production of leather and textile materials make use of very large quantities of water, growing ephea materials (i.e., mycelium) contributes to greatly save precious hydric resources, as the growing process requires just enough water to maintain appropriate humidity along the short growth cycle.

Keep following us to find out more!

ephea ™ // Wearing Mycelium – The Trench Coat

ephea™ has recently launched its first mycelium-based capsule collection, which has been developed thanks to a brilliant collaboration with Bond Factory .

Co-created by means of fungal fermentation processes and advanced digital technologies for manufacturing, the (non-commercial) collection allows brands and overall cutomers to get acquainted with the most powerful alternative for a novel and ethically responsible way for creating fashion items.
In the picture: Trench Coat realised with ephea™, and digital fabrication techniques.

The capsule collection has been developed within the framework of the EMYCLOTH project (project n. 00216), funded by , an initiative of the European Union seeking to support textile, clothing, leather, and footwear (TCLF) SMEs in enhancing their competitiveness while helping them integrating new technologies in innovative or high added-value products, processes, or services.

Keep following us to discover more about this unique piece of garment, as well as the other pieces composing the capsule collection, and click on the link in bio to find out more.

Photography by
Styling by .segato

ephea™ // Unique Proprietary Technologies

Behind ephea lie unique, proprietary technologies, including a one-of-its-kind bio-facturing process rooted in fungal fermentation and the related valorisation of low-grade organic biomasses.

By combining the advantages of solid-state fermentation with the ones of submerged/dynamic fermentation methods, SQIM has developed an ingenious technology that allows to achieve the most coherent, homogeneous, consistent, and high-quality materials in the mycelium space: ephea™.

ephea™ // Infinite Possibilities

Do you know that ephea does not come only in black, but that its aesthetics can also be fully customized?

If you’re following us, you certainly know how much we cherish all round innovations, including the introduction of the novel aesthetics emerging along the production of ephea materials - see previous posts :) In short, we are not major fans of imitations.

However, each customer has its own preferences, and often customers require articles with specific features, as for instance in relation to texture, colour, and finishing.

Accordingly, ephea can satisfy such typology of requests, providing customers with a wide range of possible aesthetics and finishes. ephea’s properties can be in fact modulated to create improved and bespoke sustainable solutions, both from a biological standpoint as well as through multiple processing techniques, including among others dying, embossing, coating, lamination, laser etching/cutting, etc.

Thanks to their thorough flexibility, as well as to their suppleness and sophisticated touch & feel, comparable to the finest traditional materials, today ephea™ materials offer the best quality for optimal performance and outstanding sensorial experiences.

ephea™ // A unique fermentation-based technology

ephea™ materials perform to the highest QUALITY requirements. Our raw materials are in fact featuring overall homogeneity in density and color, as well as a soft, velvety touch.

How to achieve such high-quality standard already at the raw material stage?

Our proprietary fermentation-based technology is key to the high quality characterizing our finished products. Thanks to our advanced research, and after having identified the most suitable combination between our selected fungal strains and the associated nutritious terrains, we designed a fermentation-driven process providing us with a raw materials with incredible characteristics and performances, making them suitable for stabilization due to their high reactivity to the selected reagents, for achieving advanced technical properties.

Thanks to our raw materials’ intrinsic qualities, it is therefore possible to create fully stable, luxurious, and long-lasting finished products that can be customized according to customers’ needs

Fashion fungi

Le champignon, véritable « tissu écologique » originel reliant les différentes composantes du monde, joue un rôle majeur dans l’équilibre de nos écosystèmes.
Aujourd’hui, la mode s’en empare à double titre : d’un point de vue formel et désormais comme matière première.

L’ultra-créative Iris van Herpen Official] s’inspire des structures fongiques dans sa collection Haute Couture S/S21 dans une perspective bio-mimétique.

Et d’autres acteurs majeurs du secteurs utilisent désormais le mycelium comme matière première : en 2020, Stella McCartney] dévoilait l’utilisation du Mylo pour un usage Pap et maro (développé par Bolt Threads]), puis Hermès] annonçait le sac Victoria en collaboration avec MycoWorks], enfin c’est Balenciaga 🕊] qui a récemment présenté sa première pièce fabriquée à partir d'EPHEA™ (EPHEA™]) - un manteau enveloppant à maxi capuche (F/W22).

Exciting sustainable innovation !

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Mushrooms, the original « ecological fabric »linking the various components of the world, play a major role in the balance of our ecosystems.
Today, fashion is seizing on it in two ways: from a formal point of view and now as a raw material.

The ultra-creative Iris van Herpen Official] is inspired by fungal structures in her Haute Couture collection S/S21 in a bio-mimetic perspective.

And other major players in the sector are now using mycelium as a raw material:
In 2020, Stella McCartney] unveiled the use of Mylo for RTW and bags (developed by Bolt Threads]), then Hermès] announced the Victoria bag in collaboration with MycoWorks], finally it was Balenciaga 🕊] who recently presented its first piece made from EPHEA™ (EPHEA™]) - a wrap-around maxi hooded coat (F/W22).

Exciting sustainable innovation!