The fishy fashionista using smoked salmon leather to make sustainable designer dresses
Callum Fairhurst went to find out more for ITV News Anglia
Haute couture is known for using all kinds of weird and wonderful techniques to catch the eye - but one young designer is turning heads with a particularly fishy hook.
Fashionista Isab Taylor uses discarded smoked salmon skin to make designer dresses.
The 24-year-old visits smoke houses and fishmongers to take the skins, which would otherwise end up in a bin, to treat and sculpt.
“Making leather from the fish skins is a really great way of using them and utilising them," she explains.
“It's so fun to hold a natural textile with its beautiful texture of the scales on top. It's so strong and it's so unique and beautiful. I just fell in love with it instantly.”
How does it work?
Does it smell?
Does it smell?
The process of cleaning and descaling does, as it is fish.
Once the cleaning has been finished and the skin has been turned into leather, it will not smell fishy, says Ms Taylor
How is the skin treated?
How is the skin treated?
In the same way cow leather is treated, through a tanning process.
Will it rot?
Will it rot?
No - not if it is done correctly.
Once you’ve turned it to leather, it's fully prepared and preserved, just like any other leather.
Using fish leather is not new, as for centuries people have taken advantage of its waterproof nature.
Ms Taylor first tried using the skins for clothing while studying fashion at university.
She said: “I lived above a fishmonger - it was the perfect opportunity to go in and ask if they had any skins I could practise with. They just gave me the bucket and said, yeah, sure!”
She said fish are her favourite animal, adding: “I rarely eat meat or fish, and I never cook it.
“I feel like I'm giving them a good funeral in a way.
"By taking this pile of grotty skins with flesh and juice all over them and turning them into something which really celebrates the beauty of them is really exciting to me because I feel like that's all the fish deserve.”
After cleaning, descaling and then tanning the skin, it will then be dyed ready to make a dress.
Her work has been sent out around the world, most recently arriving in New York.
In a world focussed on sustainability, Ms Taylor believes using what is around us is the only way forward.
“This isn't about making fish skin the primary fabric that humans use,” she said.
“But I think for the benefit of being sustainable, we need to be thinking about what's local to us and what makes sense in our environment.”
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