(Costa de Pájaros) On a beach in Costa Rica, two women clean fish skins which will then be used to make clothes and jewelry, before perhaps one day ending up on the catwalks of major fashion designers.
Marta Sosa and Mauren Castro embarked on this initiative two years ago in Costa de los Pajaros, a village located about a hundred kilometers from the capital San José, in order to provide an income for their family.
“This skin was thrown into the sea and now it will no longer pollute and will be used to make leather,” Mauren Castro, 41, explains to AFP. It will be used to make jewelry, clothing and in the future also bags and shoes, she hopes.
A total of fifteen women are united within the Piel Marina cooperative which is developing the initiative with the support of the NGO MarViva, which trained and financed them.
Around a table set up by the sea, the two women scale sea bass and sea bass skins, while fishermen deliver their catch of the day.
PHOTO EZEQUIEL BECERRA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
According to the UN, the fashion industry is responsible for 2 to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 9% of microplastics dumped into the sea.
The women of the cooperative make the jewelry themselves, while textile factories in the Puntarenas region, the country’s main port on the Pacific, make the clothes with the leather they tan.
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“It’s about giving an additional use to what we call waste in another production chain,” Sofia Ureña, designer and biomaterials researcher, told AFP. “The most sustainable clothing is the one that already exists and does not involve the expenditure of new resources,” she emphasizes.
Artisanal fishing is one of the economic drivers of the region, although the activity is in decline. The cooperative represents an opportunity for “female emancipation” in a region where women traditionally remain within households, explains Mauren Castro.
PHOTO EZEQUIEL BECERRA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
It is also a source of income, in a region where one in three adults is unemployed and where 14% of the population lives in poverty, according to official data.
“At the beginning, we didn’t believe in this challenge, because we said to ourselves: how can skin, which is something smelly and polluting, become a raw material allowing women to get by? “, remembers Mauren Castro, previously a housewife, like Marta Sosa.
“We first clean the fabric, then wash it with soap like we would wash clothes,” says Mme Sosa. “We dye it with glycerin, alcohol and (natural) dye, then put it to dry,” adds the septuagenarian.
The leather is ready after eight days (four for dyeing and four more for drying in the sun). It is soft, elastic, resistant, waterproof and does not smell fishy.
The cooperative’s activity is consolidating and their members’ dream is now to sell their leather abroad. “I would like us to see it in Hollywood, in Canada, on the big catwalks in Paris, where the great (creators) are,” says M enthusiastically.me Castro.
A hope that has a chance of coming true. Global fashion trends are moving towards eco-friendly production, and recycled and natural materials are gaining ground on international catwalks, according to UN studies.