Another Tomorrow’s collaboration with Natural Fiber Welding (NFW) and its flagship leather alternative Mirum has launched after three years of research and development.
To celebrate the Another Tomorrow x Mirum drop, the B Corp’s founder, former finance executive Vanessa Barboni Hallik, hosted a conversation with billionaire philanthropist Elizabeth “Beth” Novogratz on the topic of “fashion with compassion” at Another Tomorrow’s Soho outpost on Wooster Street last Tuesday.
“Sustainability is not a limitation, but the foundation of luxury with purpose,” Barboni Hallik said. “The launch of the Mirum jacket and skirt reflects our steadfast commitment to excellence in quality, integrity and innovation. Progress is built on intention—we shape the future by investing in the right choices, not the easy ones.”
Before founding the nonprofit media platform Species Unite, Novogratz co-authored “Just Sit: A Meditation Guide for People Who Know They Should But Don’t” with her sister-in-law, Sukey Novogratz (who is married to hedge fund manager-turned-cryptocurrency investor Michael Novogratz) published by HarperCollins in 2017. A profile of Novogratz by Passerby Magazine in 2018 referenced Species Unite as a project-podcast “fighting the hard fights” for animals.
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“It involves people who are fighting the torture in the dog meat trade in Asia, saving elephants in Thailand, capturing poachers in Tanzania, battling congress for our wild horses in the West, and advocates, rescuers, activists from all over,” the profile reads.
That tracks, as her Species Unite biography states Novogratz was “called at an early age to devote her life to elevating all animal life after witnessing inhumane animal agriculture and trade,” presumably in reference to her army-brat time spent in Europe and her “devastating” return to “chain restaurants, malls, and terrible keg parties in suburban Virginia.”
While her relationship with Barboni Hallik is unclear, Novogratz expressed enthusiasm over the Mirum jacket, considering traditional leather is “actually worse than all the worst vegan materials” on the market as validated by the average lifespan of a leather worker in Bangladesh: 49, according to Novogratz.
“One of the reasons I’m so excited about this jacket is [that] I am a beyond super-fan of next-gen materials because, eventually, they are going to replace animal [leather] and they’re just a lot better, and they’re getting better and better,” said Novogratz. “And this jacket is quite literally the very first super next-gen material that is zero plastic and all bio-based materials. It’s beautiful, and it’s the first one in the world.”
Barboni Hallik later listed the “Skinny Mirum” material matrix, which included rubber—about 40 percent of the composite—from Thailand; silica from New Jersey; talc, clay, olive wax, soybean oil and biochar, regions unclear; and “then about 9 percent patented, proprietary blends” from Peoria.
“But yeah, it’s a mix, and it varies by fabric,” she said, noting that NFW is responsible for “sourcing the actual biowaste.”
Regardless, Novogratz noted that this is a “confusing world” and “weird time” to innovate.
“It’s a really weird time, in a sense, in the world, to be bringing in such an exciting, environmentally-friendly, superstar product,” she said. “Because at the same time, especially in the U.S. right now, there’s this very strange ‘we-don’t-care’ about climate—more meat, more fur, more leather—that we see every day in our work and all of a sudden, we’re up against stuff that was happening in the 1980s.”
While Barboni Hallik noted that fur on the runway was not on her dance card, she said this was an “incredible moment” to weed out the culture vultures.
“I think what makes me most excited about this is, even taking this current moment aside, like animal welfare gets like almost no airtime in the sustainability and ethics conversation. But also, I think we need a viable alternative vision. Not to politicize the conversation, but it’s not enough to be ‘anti.’ People want to belong to something they can be ‘for,’” said Barboni Hallik. “For us, this is about demonstrating that there is a genuinely attractive and viable alternative for the future of fashion, and to make that really tangible and replicable.”
Barboni Hallik—a former Morgan Stanley managing director—founded the New York-based luxury label with the “vision of industry transformation,” built on the foundation of circularity and digitalization. The ready-to-wear brand, which counts Angelina Jolie as a strategic advisor, received a $2 million investment from Una Terra in March 2024 as part of the brand’s Series A funding round, resulting in the impact investment firm’s founding partner, Lua Zerbini, joining Another Tomorrow’s board of directors.
“There’s a relatively-high level of cynicism that people don’t really care,” said Barboni Hallik. “And I think that, in fashion, in part that comes because the knowledge base is so low to begin with.”
Though NFW’s leather alternative is just a few years old, Mirum has gained support from the likes of Levi’s, Ralph Lauren, Stella McCartney, Allbirds, H&M, Pangaia and BMW. A life cycle assessment of Mirum found it emits 10 times fewer greenhouse gas emissions than those produced by incumbent cowhide and pleather. Around the same time that these collaborations—heralded as championing plants over plastic—started heating up, the 2024 Earthshot Prize finalist laid off just under 10 percent of its workforce. The Illinois-based biomaterials firm said, back in May 2023, this move was to “trim the fat” in preparation for scaling Mirum, and not indicative of financial issues or operational shortcomings.
“Without speaking out of school on the NFW side, I think what all of these material sciences companies face is how do they prioritize, within their product mix, to create scalable capacity,” Barboni Hallik said. “This is very capital intensive; you’ve got to bring it, test it, make sure it works, and then bring in the machinery to produce at scale. And that, you know, without divulging too much, is probably, like, transparently, the biggest challenge. Because if you get these pilots to work but you can’t scale it, you don’t get funded.”
The Mirum Moto Jacket and Pencil Skirt’s “initial tight run” will be available at Another Tomorrow’s Soho flagship store and on its website. Once the test run sells out, Another Tomorrow will “take a waitlist to build demand for the next one.” Select retail partners include Net-a-Porter, Bergdorf Goodman, Selfridges, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.