Chinese researchers make dress from living fungi — it decomposes in 41 days when buried

Technology for making materials from fungi is already on the market — sold as a leather substitute and used in packaging.

Without exception, however, the fungi in such products are dead. Giving the material its shape requires drying, heating, or chemical hardening, and the mycelium does not survive those processes.

A blue dress produced by a Chinese research team sidesteps that constraint entirely. It holds color without dyeing, repels water without waterproofing treatment, and a cut made with a knife closes back up with a single drop of water.

The findings were published in Volume 12, Issue 30 of the international journal Science Advances by a joint research team led by Dr. Li Ke of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with professors Wang Xinyu and Zhong Chao.

The research team placed Cordyceps spores in a liquid growth medium and agitated the mixture until the mycelium clumped into ball-like granules.

The granules were poured into a mold and dried at 45 degrees Celsius for six hours. The mycelium fibers tangled and naturally adhered to one another as they dried, hardening into the shape of the mold. Because the drying was brief and at a low temperature, the mycelium remained alive.

The team's first results were stiff as paper and cracked with even slight bending. Fine surface cracks were visible throughout.

This is a common problem with plant-based materials. The molecules bond too tightly, so when force is applied the material breaks rather than bends.

The team's solution was glycerol, a viscous liquid commonly found in cosmetics and food products. It inserts itself between molecules and loosens the bonds holding them together — the same principle by which adding oil to dough makes it more pliable.

A fabric sample mixed with glycerol could be folded into a paper crane without cracking. When a few drops of water were applied to a cut and the fabric was left to dry in the shade, the severed edges reattached. After ten cycles of cutting and reattaching, the material retained 68 percent of its original strength.

The team then introduced pigment-producing yeast directly onto the fabric in place of conventional dyes. Yeast carrying pigment genes were applied to the fungal fabric, yielding light blue, red, orange and deep purple hues.

The result was fabric colored without any dyeing process — notable because textile dyeing ranks among the most water- and chemical-intensive steps in garment production.

The living fungal fabric also displayed an unexpected property: water did not penetrate it.

The team addressed UV protection using fungi as well. Spores of black mold — a variety that produces large amounts of dark pigment — were mixed with a nutrient solution and sprayed onto the fabric, turning the surface black within two days.

Whether the coating actually blocked ultraviolet light was confirmed through a simple experiment. The fabric was placed over a growth medium seeded with fungal spores and exposed to a UV lamp for three hours. The spores beneath the fabric germinated nearly normally, while most of the uncovered spores failed to germinate.

End-of-life disposal proved simpler than for conventional clothing. A box made from the fungal fabric was buried 5 centimeters underground and had nearly disappeared within 41 days.

The research team said, however, that the fabric has a long way to go before it could serve as everyday clothing. It has yet to measure how well the material withstands washing, how much it wears under friction, how breathable it is, or how comfortable it feels when worn.

Sensitivity to changes in humidity and temperature also remains a limitation. The team said the material is better suited to short-use applications — such as packaging or exhibition textiles — than to garments meant to be worn over time.

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aed6937

Paper information: Ke Li et al., A programmable fungal platform for engineered living textiles. Sci. Adv. 12, eaed6937 (2026).