The magic of mushrooms: Why we can't get enough fungi these days
While they have always been there, silently appearing and disappearing without most of us noticing, mushrooms seem to have exploded onto our collective consciousness in the past year or so. They are popping up everywhere from fashion, to wellness, to mental health treatments, to Michelin star plates. Look no further than the recent mycelium-inspired Alexander McQueen collection to see that mushrooms are now elevated to luxury status.
This trend has been slowly gathering momentum over the past few years. For me it first started appearing in books (and Netflix content), such as the mycelium of Epping Forest mentioned in Underland, or the acclaimed Entangled Life that has made an appearance in every bookstore window I have passed. Now we even see beautiful coffee table books with artful mushroom portraits - evidence enough, I think, that mushrooms are no longer considered ugly, and the word ‘fungus’ no longer elicits disgust (at least in certain contexts). Instead it is now aspirational and desirable to seek out the strangest looking mushrooms straight from the roots of a tree.
Part of this trend seems to have grown naturally out of an increased interest in natural products and sustainability. In fact more and more we see brands using mushrooms as a kind of experimental technology for addressing a growing need for vegetarian and vegan food items, as well as broader sustainability challenges. Mylo leather is one of the most visible examples, increasingly used in the fashion industry in place of animal leather - for example in Stella McCartney bags and Adidas trainers. Likewise there is a possibility for them to replace paper and plastic packaging for many of the goods we buy (especially as we order more and more online). Something that is “designed by nature,” as Mushroom Packaging puts it, helps us to mediate the failings of man-made technologies up until now, and potentially offer something that is regenerative rather than destructive. Mushrooms then, with their weird, mysterious lives underground and alien appearances (the re-framing of mushroom appearance as having a slightly mystical beauty seems key here as well), are potentially offering us a magic solution to sacrifice little whilst saving ourselves from a worrisome environmental fate.
And whilst mushrooms are inherently part of the earth - existing primarily below ground and requiring us to get down into the dirt to harvest them - another part of their appeal seems to be their promise of an elevated perspective and sense of wellbeing that takes us beyond our everyday. As Merlin Sheldrake’s website says, “thinking about fungi makes the world look different,” which is something we all seem to need now, particularly after multiple years of lockdowns. Most famously of course this comes from the reputation of the psilocybin mushroom. But wellness and beauty are embracing a range of other varieties - from reishi to lion’s mane to cordyceps - promising other kinds of enlightenment and rejuvenation.
Even outside the realm of psilocybin and its know psychedelic effects, many wellness products using mushrooms are highlighting their ability to shift perception and enter a ‘higher’ or better mindset. (Not to mention some of the more extreme claims out there about the healing, transformative powers of mushrooms.) Mojo mushroom gummies, for example, promise effects of “boosting energy, focus, mental clarity, and positivity.” Their brand imagery and packaging reinforces this expectation with soft, pastel gradient effects commonly used now for ‘nootropics’ offering a soft kind of ‘trip’, and multi-exposure imagery that suggests a sense that your normal vision and perception of a singular realty is slowly starting to disintegrate.
Beauty products for external application also subtly suggest not only an effective outer ‘boost’, but a sense of transportation beyond mundane beauty. Moon Juice for example has it’s “Acid Potion”, making a direct connection to a psychedelic trip, even if the intended result is soothed, smoothed skin. And Herbivore’s “Pink Cloud” cleanser (which is, fittingly, a shimmery pink, belying the tremella fungus it contains) has a name and appearance that conjures at least transportation up into the sky at sunrise, and perhaps even a kind of fantasy fairy land, achievable through mushroom-elevated skin.
Mojo Mushrooms’ website
In a time of massive cultural, social, and economic upheaval, paired with the serious existential threat of climate change, as a culture we are looking for ways to shift our perspectives and adjust our way of living with our inner selves, each other, and with the earth we live on. What’s perhaps most striking about the rise of mushrooms in this moment, though, is the foil they provide to the increasingly plugged-in lives we all live (only escalated by the pandemic as we all know well). Whilst spaces like the metaverse also offer a sense of escapism, exploration, and freedom, they come with the threat of losing our sense of fundamental humanity and earth-boundedness. Mushrooms help provide a parallel way to grow, innovate, and explore, whilst mitigating the effects of technology on our minds, bodies, and environment. As many of the new products utilising fungi and mycelium demonstrate, there is no shying away from innovation and developing new materials and ‘technologies’ (in the sense of tools and methods), but it is, at least hopefully, more attuned to life on earth. Mushrooms may transport us, and help us see a new way to live, but they ultimately link us back down into the earth, safely tethered down in the dirt.
