You’ve likely noticed an uptick in all things mushroom lately, with mushrooms imparting their fungi energy across fashion, health, food, and pop culture. The mycological motif has always been popular within design, most notably and recently as an extension of the the “cottagecore” aesthetic. But fungus has only sporadically been found within the realm of high design, which makes Belgian rug company JOV’s M-SHWY rug collection designed by the Berlin based Studio Mary Lennox an especially captivating addition to announcements made at Milan Design Week 2023.
The collection designed by Studio Mary Lennox for JOV focuses specifically upon the characteristics of a common woodland (and farmer’s market) fungus, the oyster mushroom.
Comprising three different mycologically themed rugs, M-SHWY (pronounced MS Highway) stands for “Mycorrhizal Super Highway,” a nod to the scientific discovery attributing the shuttling of nutrients and perhaps even information between trees underground via masses of thin threads known as a mycelium – a fungal network popularly compared to our own digital internet.
To give the rug extra depth and texture, JOV used a color gradient from the inside out to the edges, combined with 3D-height effects on the edges to give the rug an extra bit of hand-tufted fluff.
MSHWY01, the first design recreates a top view of an oyster mushroom. Made out of New Zealand wool with glossy Tencel Lyocell, its sheen simulates the subtle shine that one might spy glistening from the pristine and newly fruited mushroom cap of an oyster mushroom.
For MSHWY02, Studio Mary Lennox uses a macro detail view of the gills found branching out from the underside of an oyster mushroom cap. An additional bit of dimensions and depth have been added in the form of white lines simulating these mushroom gills, with a fluffy thick border.
The third MSHWY03 rug is the most colorful, a cluster of pink oyster mushrooms expressed in an earthen-pastel pink and tufted in soft Merino wool with mercerized Egyptian cotton. Rest assured, for most feet the soften woolen footfall these rugs offer will be much more agreeable underfoot than stepping upon even the softest of fungus.
The collection was presented for the first time at Milan Design Week 2023, displayed alongside vertical displays of genuine living oyster mushrooms grown from substrate, an installation conceived by Studio Mary Lennox to complement and highlight the intricate beauty of mushrooms in all their wonders.
Photography by Francesco Stelitano.
