The Future Feels Like Tomtex: Where Waste Becomes Wardrobe (and a fabulous one at that!)
Words by Amy Mazius
Shrimp shells and mushrooms are not exactly the ingredients you'd expect to find on the materials list for a luxury handbag. But in the hands of TomTex, waste from seafood and fungi are being alchemized into sleek, supple, leather-like materials that is the textile innovation we’re seeing on runways and it-girls.
Allina Liu SS25
Photographed by Andrea Sabugo
TomTex, a materials innovation company founded by Uyen Tran is creating the new class of next-gen biomaterials. Made from chitosan – the hard exoskeleton found in seafood waste and mushrooms– is the foundation of their invention, and can replicate any leather texture and color. The best part: no animals are involved, no plastics are consumed. It’s a 100% biodegradable solution creating something elegantly circular, wearable, and as playful as a designer can dream.
Growing up in Vietnam, Tran sat in fashion’s other front row, “waste was flowing back to my home [in Vietnam]. That was an ‘aha’ moment for me to switch back to really understanding the material and the concept about material that is not going to decompose. My dream is focusing on how we can make material out of natural fiber, natural material. This was the idea for TomTex.” Every year, millions of pounds of discarded clothing from the U.S. are shipped to countries like Ghana, Chile, and Vietnam, where they clog landfills, leach dyes and finishing chemicals into water systems, and overwhelm local waste infrastructures. What starts as overconsumption in Western markets ends as environmental fallout in places with far fewer resources to manage it. Even so-called “recyclable” garments are often incinerated or dumped—less than 1% of textiles are truly recycled into new clothes. And while leather is often marketed as “natural,” the tanning process relies on heavy metals and carcinogens that strip the term of meaning. The result is a supply chain that doesn’t just produce waste—it exports it.
Circularity has long been the goal of industry insiders and disrupters, looking for lasting solutions to counteract fashion’s not-so secret sins: the over-production, and the export of it all overrunning foreign landfills. But fixing a broken system isn’t as easy as upcycling and it takes experts from every area to innovate and move at scale.
The industry has remained in suspended animation in this pivotal moment: do better… or else. As consumers, we’re constantly being marketed to become ourselves via what we need to buy, every season and the moments in between, without true solutions that work for the planet at scale. And often, the sustainable solutions aren’t actually working. “99% of whatever we call recyclable is not actually recycled. It's incinerated or burned somewhere; or it’s dumped in Vietnam, Chile, Africa.” TomTex is creating a fully biodegradable material that can (and does) decompose without adding toxic waste to the environment. Now, the call to action is for designers to work with it and for consumers to embrace it.
And that is what’s happening. Industry leading brands like Collina Strada, Dauphinette, Peter Do, Allina Lu, Maitrepierre, and Di Pesta are all putting on their lab coats and creating with TomTex. Tran says, “It's a very exciting journey collaborating with each brand because they each have a different aesthetic and different requirements. You work with different teams, so the process is always surprisingly exciting in the development side. For example, Collina Strada, one of the core values of the brand is sustainability, really creating something beautiful for the customer with the environment in mind as well. And their style is so fun and creative. They want to challenge the norm of creating and build the culture around it.” This is where innovation begins, with curiosity and the desire for change. “Designing like this is challenging because sometimes you have to develop the material since fabric that is sustainable and luxurious isn’t available to buy off the shelves. That’s where we come in, we navigate the designers’ vision and align aesthetics with values.”
Collina Strada FW25
Photos by Paris Mumpower
Tran points out, “Clothes are very invisible. They touch our skin, which is our biggest organ.” We have to consider, especially when the industry won’t do it for us, where we draw the line at toxins and prioritize our health in addition to the planet’s. It’s a combination of the desensitization, the information and choice overload, and looking only where we’re told. Clean eating is a trend, yet clean dressing isn’t always discussed. “It's not just what you eat. It's everything, everywhere.” Being mindful in our every decision also comes at a cost that not everyone can afford. Yet the onus is on us as consumers, which is why creating change at scale with companies and movements like TomTex is critical for the industry. Tran says, “it is so complex to live in a more sustainable way. But it’s possible. Vintage is sexy again. I love going to thrift stores and tracing what I find. I’m in the habit of not buying clothes more than three times a year, I continue to circle my clothes back and forth, mixing in pieces from the thrift store as my practice. When I choose the brand that I want to buy from, I really care about the detail, because the devil is in the detail, on the traceability, how they treat their laborers, if they publish their reports. And I care about that more now when I buy my clothes, it’s a more holistic way of viewing what I'm buying and supporting.”
Photos by Amber Nguyen
Collina Strada FW25 by Paris Mumpower
The road from mushroom lab to mainstream retail is paved with venture capital, cultural inertia, and plenty of well-intentioned greenwashing flops. But the commitment to change coupled with a little bit of faith in the long-term, even if not in our lifetime, could lead us there. “We tell our team: this might not fully happen in our lifetime. But the research, the groundwork—that’s what gets picked up by the next generation.” Tomtex is pressing on the soft spots in the system to spark large-scale change—proving that materials can be fundamentally reimagined to serve the luxury space. But people should have other options—real ones. That’s all we’re trying to build. It’s not about creating something perfect. It’s about creating something better.”
Follow along the TomTex journey, happy Earth Evening!