Material Design Innovation: Fish Leather, a new environmentally friendly material

This research explores the material design innovation process during a cross-disciplinary project working with fish leather. The Fishskinlab project aims to generate a deeper understanding of fish leather as an alternative to conventional leather to encourage more sustainable fashion practices. The objective is to create aesthetically relevant, technical and crafted fish leather products that illuminate sustainability thinking as a driver for innovation. The research draws on findings gathered through a partnership between the researcher, the Icelandic tannery Atlantic Leather and the Italian analytical laboratory Ars Tinctoria connecting fashion designers, scientists and leather technicians from the UK, Italy and Iceland to advance material innovation by using new technology (water-based ink digital printing methods) on fish leather. This led to the development of a collection of digitally printed fish leather bags. The skins were sourced at Atlantic leather, the researcher developed the prints and followed the technical process while the digital printing was produced and tested at the Italian analytical laboratory Ars Tinctoria.