Ancient and esteemed or callously controversial? When it comes to using animal skins in fashion and design, fish skin leather weighs in as one of the better options for the environment, while also reviving economies and ancient traditions.

The rise of social media influencers helped spike the demand among millennials for luxury leather goods and as a result, the luxury leather market has nearly doubled in value from $45 billion in 2015 to $80 billion in 2023, which means more brands searching for alternative leather products.

Between our overwhelming climate dilemma and demand for leather goods worldwide, the need for sustainable leather options is critical to help diminish the carbon footprint, create more jobs, and repurpose waste.

But are fish and salmon leather the so-fish-ticated solution to this issue that it’s scaled up to be? Or a load of carp?

Conents: Fish Skin Leather

  1. What Is Fish Leather? Jump to section
  2. What Are Fish Leather Products? Jump to section
  3. How Is Fish Leather Made? Jump to section
  4. Is Fish Leather Sustainable? Jump to section
  5. Advantages & Disadvantages Of Fish Leather Jump to section
  6. Fish Leather Vs Cow Leather Jump to section
  7. Brands Making Fish Leather Products Jump to section

What Is Fish Leather?

Fish leather is just that: an exotic and eco-friendly leather made from fish skins of non-endangered food species discarded from the fishing industry.

Although fish scale leather accounts for less than 1% of total global leather sales currently, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) promotes its production to boost the incomes of fishing communities worldwide.

It’s a natural byproduct that, through a time-intensive but worthwhile process, becomes a sturdy and luxury leather to replace less sustainable exotic leathers of endangered species like alligator or snake. Because it recycles the skin waste leftover from the seafood industry and prevents tons of fish skin from entering landfills or waterways, it’s also a more eco-friendly alternative to cow leather, with the idea being that hopefully fish skin leather can help usurp the world’s demands for cow hides.

Fish skin leather products can be made from any variety of fish species, the most common are salmon, perch, tilapia, cod, wolffish, lionfish, stingray, and eel. Though all feature a geometric pattern and texture, each fish leather has its own distinctive natural pattern, and no two skins are the same. Some have a scaly surface, while fish like catfish, eel, and stingray yield a smooth leather finish.

These function similarly to traditional leathers, and, while certain fish are slightly stronger, all actually provide a more durable quality than cow’s leather thanks to its natural cross-grain fiber structure.

What Are Fish Leather Products?

Though its history is poorly recorded—probably because fish skin leather products were associated with poverty in most cultures that donned it—the material is attributed to a number of coastal indigenous communities from Scotland and Iceland to Alaska and Canada.

Its earliest use can be traced back to the Nainai people of the Amur Basin in Russia-Asia and the Hebrew peoples of Ancient Egypt. Tribes and coastal communities that already relied on fishing for food and trade would use the discarded fish leather as protection from the elements, a la fish leather clothing, footwear, and shelter. Since at least the 12th century, they’ve subjected it to a tanning process, which chemically extracts any living matter from an animal’s skin to create the hides.

In Canada, tanning fish skins is popular among a number of native traditions, which are now being revived, since they hold historical and cultural significance in many indigenous fishing communities.

Then, in the 19th century, fish skin leather fell into obscurity when colonialism and modernization replaced fish leather boots and clothing with rubber shoes and factory-manufactured clothes. Much history of this “poor man’s leather” has since been forgotten since it wasn’t archaeologically preserved.

Fish Leather For Sale Today

Just like the salmon behind those wild salmon leather shoes, the trend is swimming back upstream as local artists and luxury designers alike are crafting shoes, handbags, and car interiors with the scaly stuff.

A research project funded by the EU is helping to find ways to make and use fish skin leather sustainably in the fashion industry. Ironically, the link between fish leather and poverty has been turned on its (fish)head as luxury brands like Prada, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, John Galliano, and Salvatore Ferragamo have all sourced fish skin from Nordic Fish Leather in Iceland for various collections—at premium prices.

How Is Fish Leather Made?

To make the fish leather, skins are scraped free of any flesh or fat then stretched out flat to dry, preferably with sunlight exposure. Then the dried fish skins undergo the dyeing and tanning process, which varies depending on who is processing the exotic leather. For the Inuit peoples of Arctic Canada, they soak the skins in progressively stronger tannin baths, before finally oiling and drying to give it a waterproof and soft, supple texture making it perfect for that fish skin leather jacket.

Some methods for tanning fish skins, such Inversa’s lionfish-leather, do use similar toxic chemicals present in cow’s leather tanneries (like chromium). That said, these fish leathers use less toxic Chromium III instead of Chromium IV.

A more ecological option for tanning fish leather is vegetable tanning—the original method used by Inuit peoples—which makes use of extracts from bark and wood as tanning agents. The method helps preserve the unique characteristics of fish leather, such as its exotic scale pattern and three-dimensional surface, and there’s fortunately a number of companies getting their fins wet:

  • UK-based Felsie tans only with non-toxic and all-natural willow bark byprroducts from trees grown for cricket bats.
  • Elisa Palomino, a renowned designer, professor, fish skin leather advocate, and founder of FISHSKINLAB, uses a printing process for her leathers with non-toxic indigo dyes sourced from Japan.
  • At Iceland’s Nordic Fish Leather, facilities run off locally prevalent geothermal energy, and they have the equipment to re-use every drop of water eight to nine times in the production process. They only use natural, non-polluting dyes.
  • At Brazil’s Nova Kaeru tannery—whose legally-caught Pirarucu or Arapaima fish leather was famously worn by Rihanna in her Vogue pregnancy photoshoot—only non-toxic tanning and dyeing techniques are employed.

Is Fish Leather Sustainable?

There’s nothing fishy about it: almost 50 million tons of fish waste is produced every year—a large portion of which is a viable and sustainable alternative to cow leather or exotic leathers from endangered species. In 2018, Chanel discontinued its use of reptile leathers after animal rights activists protested against the inhumane treatment of reptiles raised or hunted for their skins.

As long as the fish aren’t farmed primarily for their skins—and none of the companies we explored do so—fish skin is a natural byproduct of the seafood industry that tends to be discarded. There are 88 pounds of fish skin for every 2,000 pounds of fileted fish, and in 2015, humans consumed 150 million tons, equivalent to 6 million tons of skins.

Fish skin is seeing a surge in demand both because it serves as a more ethical leather alternative, fosters a more circular economy, and creates new job opportunities for coastal communities.

It requires less energy and resources to cultivate than conventional materials. Skins are sourced locally from nearby fisheries, and processing raw materials close to home reduces transport routes, lowers carbon footprint and promotes transparency throughout the supply chain.

Nordic Fish Leather’s Sustainability

Nordic Fish Leather, the longest standing Iceland-based fish skin leather producer globally, sources fish sustainably via Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faroe Islands fishing fleets.

Their facilities run off geothermal renewable energy from volcanoes, they use natural, non-polluting dyes, and they re-use all water up to nine times in the production process, unlike the tanning horrors of cow leather.

FISHSKINLAB’s Fish Leather Sustainability

Elisa Palomino’s research investigates the sustainability and craft innovation of fish leather. She holds 30 years of experience working in luxury fashion and her practice-based research draws upon her experiences designing with fish leather at John Galliano and Christian Dior.

Her project, FISHSKINLAB:“Aims to promote the use of sustainable fish leather and seeks to inspire, educate and inform designers, creators, and consumers about its beauty, quality, versatility and sustainability. The project will look at intelligent ways of using ocean food waste for the development of fashionable leather articles. The aim is to turn ocean waste into higher-value products.”

Palomino is currently working with the Smithsonian Institute, along with receiving a large grant through the EU to fund her work at FISHSKINLAB.

Inversa’s Fish Leather Sustainability

Inversa takes fish leather a step further by using it not as a means of waste management for discarded fish skins, but as a method to manage invasive species around Florida and the Caribbean.

Founded by scuba enthusiast-friends Araav Chavda and Roy Salatino, Inversa relies on educating and encouraging marginalized fishermen in remote places to catch lionfish, an all-consuming invasive fish species that devour up to 80% of young marine life within a month of entering a coral reef system.

“A lot of the geographies, especially the lower-income Caribbean area, have no market at all [for lionfish] – and so this fish is not only destroying the coral reefs, which sustain these fishing cooperatives’ livelihoods, but they also can’t do anything about it,” Chavda said in an interview.

They prefer to use ‘regenerative’ to describe the material they say is environmentally responsible because it improves the planet and restores balance to reefs and rivers.

Whether it is environmentally friendly to kill a species for the survival of another is of course a question of personal ethics, but one Inversa staunchly supports.

Nova Kaeru’s Fish Leather Sustainability

Pregnant Rihanna made the world turn its head in the famous red fish leather jacket she donned for Vogue, and the Pirarucu fish of the Amazon provide another example of how fish skin leather can help make more circular economies.

The high-end brand behind this jacket, Noba Kaerum said in an interview: “As far as the pirarucu being a food source and feeding local communities and putting food on the table for the folks in the areas where it’s fished and beyond, it is not just a durable and beautiful material. It promotes circularity of the species in utilizing a material that would otherwise go to waste.”

Advantages & Disadvantages Of Fish Leather

While fish skin leather is an effective way to make use of already discarded seafood waste, the most glaring disadvantage is that a living being was killed in its making—even if not for it. This is sardinely a less-than pacifish reality we can’t ignore.

Puns aside, given its historic use and the prevalence of the raw material available, there are a number of advantages and disadvantages worth plunging into.

The use of aquatic resources in the fashion industry is largely seen as a positive, as it can increase the sustainability of both the fishing and the fashion industries. When fisheries generate enormous amounts of fish skin later turned into fish leather products, value is added to locally caught fish, which leads to higher incomes and new employment opportunities for local communities.

In Kenya, for example, Lake Turkana’s invasive Nile perch grows up to six feet long, and the leather sells for $5 per square foot. This new revenue stream for the Lake Turkana fishing community means local fishermen receive 30% more for each fish they sell.

Beyond that, it revives endangered ancient craft forms, while providing the ever-demanding fashion cycle with novelty, beauty, function, and sustainability.

Fish Leather Advantages:

While innovative vegan alteratives are important, to avoid animal-based leather altogether ignores the massive issue of waste in the seafood and meat industries. Since 1961, the annual rate of increase of seafood consumption has outpaced population growth in all proteins except poultry. The US is one of the largest consumers of seafood in the world, which means diverting waste and repurposing its byproducts is critical.

Other advantages include:

  • Non-endangered species of fish are usually used.
  • No extra land or water is needed.
  • Skins are sourced locally, which reduces carbon footprint.
  • Many factories, like Nordic Fish Leather (formerly Atlantic Leather), use Icelandic geothermal energy from volcanoes.
  • Many fish leathers are tanned and dyed with vegetables and are biodegradable.
  • New job opportunities for coastal dwellers and remote communities increase with fish leather production.
Fish Leather Disadvantages:

Really, fish leather disadvantages depend on who you ask. Beyond it being a byproduct of a living being killed for consumption, Nordic Fish Leather says it’s the cost of production that is the most challenging, which leads to expensive products.

Sustainable sourcing through waste and invasive species culling means fish leather is seen as sustainably superior over traditional leather. That said, the potential for a toxic tanning process and for fish to be industrially farmed for leather are two main obstacles to fish leather.

Because fish leather’s resurgence as a contemporary fashion “must-have” is so new, the industry is entirely uncertified, making it difficult for consumers to guarantee brands are using ethical supply chain.

According to Malou Koldenhof, co-owner of Wales-based The Fish Leather Company, “The primary demographic interested in fish leather is made up of art and fashion students.” In other words, the luxury fashion industries are appropriating something historically used by economically disadvantaged peoples, which (like thrift flips) receives criticism as being non-progressive.

Fish Leather Vs Cow Leather

Fish scales tip the scales when it comes to strength. Their resistance to breaking under tension, also known as tensile strength, is up to 90 newtons with fish leather. The toughest are salmon skin leather and perch leather. This is thanks to its crisscross, rather than the parallel fibers, like those of other leathers.

By comparison, cow skin leather hides have just 8 to 25 newtons of tensile strength.

Fish leather is also slightly more elastic and waterproof than leather, thanks to oils added during the creation process.

Beyond the performance advantages, the process to make it is advantageous over the traditional leather industry, which is fraught with injustice. From the devastating deforestation from the Amazon to Alabama to create cattle pastures and the methane gas released (which accounts for 20% of all global emissions), to the mistreatment of animals (who must be killed) and the toxic chemicals like chromium and arsenic used in tanneries, leather is highly problematic.

The hope in utilizing fish leather is that its raw materials’ ubiquity, lack of additional water or land needs, and non-toxic processing can help address social and environmental problems in the textile, leather, and food industries.

Brands Making Fish Leather Products

Because fish leather is so versatile, more and more brands are making fish skin leather clothing, sustainable wallets, bike seats, lamps, fish leather shoes, boots, watch straps, handbags, and more.

Nordic Fish Leather is used by Prada and Dior and sees an almost 20% increase yearly.

Even Nike experimented with making fish skin leather shoes from perch leather.

Main-stream brands aside, more niche sustainable brands are jumping on board the boat, too. Belgium-based Ms Bay, for example, offers gorgeous earthy handbags made from 100% vegetable tanned salmon skin. From using ethically certified factories to upcycling all production scraps, there’s no reason to feel any guilt for indulging in one of their salmon leather wallets.

Other sustainable luxury brands with fish leather products for sale include: