The Future of Fashion – Made from Mushrooms | Dan Widmaier | TED

翻译人员: 思辰 李 校对人员: Yip Yan Yeung

I'm a proud lifelong nerd,

当了一辈子书呆子，我很自豪。

and I have a PhD in chemistry and chemical biology to prove it,

别不信，我手上还有一张 化学与化学生物学的博士毕业证书。

which is why I never thought I'd be that guy standing up here,

我从没想过我会站在这个台上，

talking about my love affair with fashion.

跟大家分享的却是 我与时尚潮流的趣事。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And there's someone else in my life

在我的生活中还有这么一位，

who's equally shocked by this turn of events,

也对我的转变感到吃惊，

and that's my wonderful wife,

她就是我那很棒的妻子，

who literally has a degree in fashion.

而且她还真的有个时尚专业的学位。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

But here I am, standing with these two wallets.

现在我站着这儿， 拿着两个钱包，

One of these is made out of leather,

其中一个是用皮革做的，

one of these is made out of mushrooms.

另一个是用蘑菇做的。

And I'm not going to tell you which one is which.

我是不会告诉你哪个是哪个的。

The average consumer can't tell you the difference --

普通消费者 也无法告诉你其中的区别—

kind of the whole point.

这就是关键了。

Because even if you hate fashion,

因为就算你讨厌时尚，

you've got an entire room in your house devoted to it.

你家里可有一整个 为时尚而生的房间，

It's called your closet.

那就是你的衣橱。

And your closet is full of all kinds of materials --

你的衣橱里装满了 各种材质的衣服——

cotton, leather, nylon, polyester --

棉花的、皮革的、尼龙的、聚酯的—

that list goes on and on.

讲都讲不完。

And those materials matter,

这些材料很重要，

because those materials are the reason

因为这些原材料

fashion is in the midst of a sustainability crisis.

导致整个时尚行业 卷入了可持续性发展的危机。

This is an industry that makes 100 billion plus items per year.

这是一个每年生产 超过 1000 亿件商品的行业。

When I started my journey, I thought this was going to be a really easy answer.

我一开始以为 这个问题的解决方案很简单。

We just consume less,

我们减少消费就好啦，

we have fewer, better things.

我们可以买一些少而精的东西。

But in the last decade,

但在过去的十年里，

I've come to believe that ignores fundamental realities

我开始认为这一观点 忽略了人类和时尚的本质。

of both fashion and human nature.

You see, fashion is not purely functional.

时尚并不只是功用性的。

It's about confidence, creativity, self-expression.

时尚是关于自信、创造力 和自我表达的。

It's a pure reflection of our innate desire, as humans,

时尚纯粹地反映了 我们内心的渴望，

to always want more.

作为人类，我们总是想要更多。

And it satisfies our insatiable appetites

时尚迎合了我们永不满足的欲望。

to discover, buy, collect, show off.

我们发现、购买、 收集、炫耀的欲望。

In truth, fashion is intrinsic to who we are.

其实时尚就是我们的本性所在。

There is a piece of good news, though.

不过我有一个好消息，

We can make fashion sustainable,

我们可以让时尚变得更加可持续化。

and we're going to do it with science,

通过科学，我们可以做到这一点。

and we're going to do it not by changing the humans,

我们不会通过改变 人类行为来做到这一点，

but by changing those materials themselves.

而是单纯地改变制造原料。

And lucky for us,

幸运的是，

the answers to all of fashion's materials problems

所有有关时装材料的问题，

are available today, out there in nature,

它们的答案现在都可以 在大自然中找到。

and it's our job, as scientists,

作为科学家，我们的工作就是

to go find the best inventions

从大自然 40 亿年的历史中 找到最好的发明创造，

from nature's four-billion-year catalog of greatest hits

and bring them to the world of design.

然后把它们用到设计的领域中来。

So I started a PhD,

我当时正开始攻读博士学位，

and I actually fell in love with one of these materials from nature.

然后我就爱上了一种大自然的材料。

And it's this -- it's spider silk.

那就是蛛丝。

It's this fine, elegant, tough fiber that spiders make.

蜘蛛创造出了 这样精细、优雅、坚韧的纤维。

You've probably seen a Spider-Man movie, you know.

你可能看过《蜘蛛侠》的电影，

You may have wanted to make Peter Parker's web slinger.

是不是想模仿彼得·帕克 （Peter Parker）吐丝了？

It's OK -- I did, too; it's badass.

别害羞，我也一样。 这真是特别酷。

I wanted to recreate that material in a lab,

我想在实验室里重制这种材料，

so I started a company, and we did just that.

所以我成立了一家公司专做这个。

And the very first product we made was this:

我们的第一个产品

a tie.

是一条领带。

I took the very first tie, and I sent it to Stan Lee himself,

我把这第一条领带寄给了 斯坦·李（Stan Lee）本人，

cocreator of Spider-Man, idol to nerds around the planet,

他是蜘蛛侠的创造者， 全球书呆子的偶像，

all-around amazing human.

简直是一个全能的人。

And he loved it.

他超级喜欢这条领带。

He actually cold-called my phone from a blocked number,

他竟然用了一个加密号码 突然给我打了通电话，

and we geeked out over the technology.

我们就这项科技 展开了技术宅之间的讨论。

And back in those days,

那时，

almost nobody was working on sustainable materials in fashion.

几乎没有人在研究 时尚界的可持续材料。

So I excitedly ran off to go talk to designers and fashion executives.

所以我兴奋地跑去 跟设计师和时尚界的高管交谈。

And they thought this was fine, cool,

他们认为这特别好，特别酷，

but they couldn't shut up about their problem with leather.

但他们对皮革的问题却闭口不谈。

And for really good reason.

这是有原因的。

Leather is one of the most pivotal materials in the fashion world.

皮革是时尚界最关键的原材料之一。

In 2020 alone, the five biggest European luxury houses

仅在 2020 年， 欧洲五大奢侈品公司

sold over 50 billion dollars of leather goods.

就销售了超过 500 亿美元的皮革制品。

And the challenge with leather

皮革面临的问题是

is that today, it's inextricably linked to raising cows,

它与养牛密不可分。

and not just a few -- like, lots of cows.

我们谈的不是几头牛，而是许多牛。

And cows, at the global scale, are terrible for our environmental future.

在全球范围内，这些牛 对我们的环境影响都是很可怕的。

And so I left this conversation thinking,

所以聊完以后我就在想

"OK, what makes leather leather?"

“为什么皮革之所以是皮革呢？”

And the truth is,

事实上，

nobody loves leather because it comes from a cow.

我们不是因为皮革 来自于一头牛而喜欢皮革。

We love it because it's strong, it's soft, it's beautiful.

我们喜欢的是皮革的 耐用、柔韧和美丽。

It plays from the runway in Paris to a rodeo in Texas.

皮革从巴黎的 T 台 盛行到德克萨斯的牛仔竞技场。

So if we can take cows out of the equation,

如果我们要去掉牛这个元素的话，

what's the thing we have to replicate to make a great material like leather?

我们得用什么 来代替皮革这么好的材料呢？

And the answer is microstructure.

答案是微观结构。

So this is a microscope image of the collagen in cowhide.

这是一张牛皮中 胶原蛋白的显微镜图像。

And it looks like a mess,

它看起来像一团乱麻。

it's just this jumble of fibers mixed together.

一堆杂乱无章的纤维混合在一起。

At its essence, that structure is why leather is both pliable and strong.

不过说到底，这种结构 就是皮革既柔韧又坚固的原因。

Now, contrast that to your closet.

用你衣橱里的东西举个例子。

All those materials are what we call knits or wovens.

这些材料都是我们所说的 针织品或编织品。

They look like this under a microscope.

它们在显微镜下 看起来是这样的。

Essentially, you take a single thread, and you loop it around itself,

从本质上来说， 你把一根线绕在自己身上，

or you crisscross it over itself, and you make a fabric.

或者交叉地缠在你身上， 你就做成了一种织物。

If we want to make a new material

如果我们想制造出一种新材料，

with the same amazing properties as leather,

一种有着皮革特性的材料，

we need to go out and find a natural material

我们就得找到一种天然材料，

with the same microstructure as the collagen in cowhide.

一种与牛皮中的胶原蛋白 具有相同微观结构的材料。

Now, my brain gets going with this,

我就开始想了，

and I think, "OK, we can grow skin, we can grow pure collagen,

“我们可以培养人造皮， 可以培养纯胶原蛋白，

we can use plant fibers ..."

我们可以使用植物纤维......”

Those all fail.

但这些都失败了。

Quality, cost or scalability reasons tank those ideas.

质量、成本和能否大规模生产的原因 让这些想法搁浅了。

And that's what brought me to the world of fungi.

于是我就来到了真菌的世界。

I'm going to assume you all know what mushrooms are.

我就当大家都知道什么是蘑菇了。

I'm going to show you some mushrooms on the side of a dead tree.

我想给你们看看一些 枯树边上的蘑菇。

And I'm much more interested in what's happening

这儿有一些更令人兴奋的事情

just beneath the surface.

发生在地底下。

Inside that tree are millions of stringy little strands

就在这棵树的里面， 有着数百万条线状物。

that are called mycelium,

这些线被称为菌丝。

that are eating away at it.

它们不断地啃噬这棵树。

They look like this.

它们长这样。

So you see those white fibrous roots underneath the mushroom --

你看到的蘑菇底下 那些白色纤维状的根

those are mycelium.

就是菌丝。

They’re these long branch networks.

菌丝形成了长长的分支网络。

And what they're doing is eating dead stuff in the soil

它们吃掉土里的死物，

and releasing nutrients to the mushroom and to the ecosystem around it.

然后把营养物质传递给 蘑菇和它周围的生态系统。

And so now, I'm going to show you side by side.

我现在把它们并排展示给大家看。

Collagen on the left, mycelium on the right.

左边的是胶原蛋白， 右边的是菌丝。

We're looking at microstructure;

这都是微观结构。

I'm saving you six years of getting a PhD.

这可能会 帮你省下 6 年的博士学习。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

We're on to something here.

小有成果。

But to pull this off,

但我们的目的，

we need to do this at the scale of fashion.

是得让它扩展至时尚行业的规模。

We need a lot of mycelium. Not a lab, but a factory.

所以我们需要大量的菌丝。 实验室是做不到的，工厂才能做到。

So that's exactly what we did.

所以我们需要一座工厂。

So here, what you're seeing is our first factory,

你现在看到的 就是我们的第一座工厂。

and you're seeing rows and rows of pure mycelium

一排一排的菌丝

growing in these trays.

就长在这些架子上。

And those mycelium are eating leftover sawdust,

这些菌丝正在吃木屑，

so they're doing what fungi do best in nature --

这就是真菌在大自然中 最擅长做的事情——

they eat something nobody wants, and they turn it into something useful.

吃掉人们不要的东西， 然后把它们变成有用的东西。

And instead of growing into the soil,

与其让菌丝长在土里，

these mycelium are growing up in these big puffy clouds

我们让菌丝在这些 绵云一般的环境里生长。

that we can easily harvest.

这样，我们就可以轻松收获它们。

And this is where science has to meet design.

这就是科学和设计相辅相成的地方。

We take that material and turn it into something leatherlike.

我们把这种材料 变成类似皮革的东西。

It has to be beautiful, has to be functional.

变成一种美丽且实用的东西。

And designers need to be able to easily incorporate it

得让设计师能够轻松地 将它们用到时尚产品中。

into the world of fashion products.

The first prototypes were none of those things.

最早的原型远没有这么理想。

But after many thousands of iterations,

但经过成千上万次的迭代，

we have a material, and we call it Mylo.

我们终于做出了一种 叫做 Mylo 的材料。

And Mylo does everything we set out for it.

Mylo 做到了我们想要的一切。

It's beautiful, it's functional,

它很美，很实用，

but most importantly, it's sustainable.

最重要的是，它是可持续的产品。

So when you grow mushrooms,

如果要种蘑菇，

it takes about a little under one square meter of land

只需要不到 1 平方米的土地

to grow one kilogram of mushrooms.

就可以种植 1 公斤的蘑菇。

Contrast that to cows --

相比起来，

takes about 97 square meters of land to grow one kilogram of cow.

每养 1 公斤重的奶牛 需要大约 97 平方米的土地。

And when we're growing Mylo,

Mylo 的种植

we're doing this in high-density vertical agriculture,

是在空间利用率极高的 垂直农场里进行的。

and we power it with 100 percent renewable energy.

我们用 100% 的可再生能源 为整个过程供能。

And this is technology.

这都是科技帮助我们实现的。

We're constantly getting better. Contrast that to the cow.

和早先的奶牛养殖相比， 我们的这项技术正在不断地进步。

It's about as good as it's going to get,

我们已经尽可能地 完善了奶牛的养殖。

and the cows really don't like it

但奶牛依然不好受，

when you stack them up in high-density vertical agriculture.

因为它们不喜欢被塞进 拥挤的垂直农场里。

And so the question remains:

现在我们面临的问题是：

How are we going to distribute this material at global scale

我们该如何把这些材料分发到全球

to meet the moment?

并满足当今世界的需求呢？

I have bad news for you here.

我要告诉大家一个坏消息。

Historically, it takes decades

从历史上看，

for a new material to reach global-scale adoption.

一种新材料需要几十年 才能在全球范围内被采用。

Take spandex, that stretchy fiber.

以氨纶为例， 这是一种富有弹性的纤维。

It's in your blue jeans, your yoga pants.

你的牛仔裤和瑜伽裤里都有它。

Makes your butt look amazing.

很好地修饰了你的臀部曲线。

That material was invented in the 1950s,

这种材料是在 20 世纪 50 年代发明的，

and it wasn't until the athleisure megatrend 50 years later

直到 50 年后的 运动休闲风开始时兴，

that it was truly everywhere on this planet.

这种材料才开始流行起来。

And thank you, climate change --

但是由于气候变化，

we humans don't have 50 years to wait.

人类等不了 50 年了。

We need to solve this problem.

我们得解决这个问题。

We need new materials, and we need them now.

我们现在就急需新的材料。

And this is where fashion can be transformational.

而这正是时尚界可以改变的地方。

So I went out and constructed what we call the Mylo Consortium.

因此，我们创立了 Mylo 联盟。

These are fashion brands you know.

联合了一些你所熟知的时尚品牌：

Stella McCartney, lululemon, Kering and Adidas.

麦卡妮（Stella McCartney）， 露露乐蒙（Lululemon），

开云集团旗下的品牌（Kering） 和阿迪达斯（Adidas）。

Normally, fashion brands are renowned for their competitive nature

通常，时尚品牌以其竞争性

and their desire for exclusivity.

和对独特风格的追求而闻名。

But I was able to convince these brands

但我说服了这些品牌，

that no one group can solve this problem alone.

告诉他们没有任何一个组织 能够单独解决这个问题。

And to meet this moment,

为了达成这一目标，

it was time to act in collaboration instead of competition.

是时候化敌为友开始合作了。

We did just that.

我们就这么做了。

With the idea that we're going to solve this really big problem really fast.

我们想着要尽快解决这个大问题。

And here's a taste of how they're supporting Mylo.

他们是这样支持 Mylo 的。

Lululemon wove Mylo into yoga and wellness accessories.

露露乐蒙将 Mylo 编织成 瑜伽用品和健身配饰。

Celebrity environmentalist Paris Jackson

著名的环保主义者 帕里斯·杰克逊（Paris Jackson）

modeled Mylo in this fashion editorial.

在这篇时尚专栏中为 Mylo 做模特。

Adidas redesigned the Stan Smith --

阿迪达斯用 Mylo 重新设计了他们最经典的款式

it's their most iconic style --

斯坦史密斯 休闲鞋。

with Mylo.

And Stella McCartney designed the Frayme Mylo handbag,

斯特拉·麦卡特尼 （Stella McCartney） 设计了 Frayme Mylo 手袋，

and debuted it on the Paris runway.

并在巴黎的 T 台上展示了它。

And that little black handbag that you see right there,

你看到的那个黑色小手袋，

that's now part of Stella's commercial collection.

现在纳入了 Stella 的商业系列。

And what that means is that this is not some far-off idea

这说明了我们不只是 在做一个飘渺无边的梦，

that's a dream that may one day be real.

这是一个终会成真的美梦。

Mylo's commercially viable today.

Mylo 如今的商业模式是可行的。

We sell it for 30 dollars a square foot.

它售价每平方英尺 30 美元，

It's about the price of premium calf leather.

和优质小牛皮的价格差不多。

And this -- this is the tipping point.

这是一个转折点。

This is the first tangible proof that the future of fashion

这是首个证据

证明未来的时尚 可以且将由可持续性材料塑造。

can and will be made with sustainable materials.

And this is our road map.

这是我们的路线图。

We went looking to nature for a better alternative to leather,

我们尝试在大自然中 寻找更好的皮革替代品，

and we found that mycelium.

然后我们就找到了菌丝。

It was hiding in plain sight.

它在众目睽睽之下， 却又是这样的深藏不露。

And this story, Mylo's story,

这个有关 Mylo 的故事

is just one small example in a much broader movement.

只是我们宏大运动中的一个小例子。

It's the one I know.

一个我可以分享的例子。

But in the last few years,

但在过去的几年里，

countless scientists have joined us

无数的科学家已经加入了我们，

in this journey of a sustainable materials revolution.

加入了这个可持续材料革命的旅程。

And in the coming years,

而在未来几年，

I think we're going to see amazing advances

我认为我们将看到惊人的进步

that replace all the harmful materials in your closet,

你的衣柜、家里和汽车中的 所有有害物质会被取代。

in your home and your car.

And my hope is that, by sharing this journey with Mylo,

我希望通过分享 Mylo 的故事，

it can act as a blueprint that these others can follow

呈现出一个 其他人可以遵循的模式，

to more quickly improve this world for all of us.

一个可以加速改善这个世界的蓝图。

Because in my heart,

因为内心深处，

I'm still that nerd from the beginning,

我仍然是一开始的那个书呆子，

and I want to know what else is hiding out there in nature.

我想知道大自然中还藏着什么。

I want to know what's the number-one spot

想知道在 40 亿年的进化过程中，

on the best-of playlist from four billion years of evolution.

是什么能在最佳播放列表里常年霸榜。

And the incredible part of all this

而不可思议的是，

is that fashion undoubtedly compounded our sustainability crisis.

时尚无疑加重了 我们的可持续发展危机。

But fashion has a golden opportunity to lead the charge,

但时尚界正迎来了一个黄金机会，

to live with nature, instead of against it.

时尚可以选择引领大家 与自然共存，而不是与之对抗。

And now, and in the future,

无论何时，

fashion's not just about making yourself beautiful.

时尚不仅仅是为了 让我们每个人自己变得美丽，

It's also about making this planet beautiful and livable for generations.

它也是为了让这个星球变得更加美丽， 让世世代代长久地生活在此。

Thank you.

谢谢大家。

(Cheers and applause)

（欢呼和掌声）