Fish Leather Works is a pioneer in the United States in utilizing tanned fish leather.
It is a small craftswoman company devoted to meticulously design fish leather purses and accessories. These unique, customized, exclusive handbags are handmade with a warm, soft palette and with a superb quality and craftsmanship.
Each purse is created and tailored with customer delight and satisfaction in mind, paying attention to every detail to craft these beautiful, fashionable purses.
The art of working with fish leather demands a highly skilled craftsperson with a very distinctive skill set of master craftsmanship possessed by only a few artisans. Different fish species have different scales patterns. These scales patterns can also change along the body of the fish. Therefore, each piece of leather is hand selected to match the artistic, leather patterns desired in our unique designs.
Our fish leathers are refined through an ancient process that employs only 100% vegetable tanning without any chrome or other harming metals to the environment.
Fish leather is an exotic, sustainable and unique raw material. Mostly discarded in the environment, fish skin is only salvaged in a few countries, therefore, making it very limited and exclusive.
THE NEED TO DIMINISH ENVIROMENTAL WASTE & TO UPCYCLE
Working full time during the day at a handbag factory and going to high school at night was extremely challenging. However, I was able to learn at hand all the necessary skills to make purses and I truly enjoyed working for over 20 years in the industry. Yet, something was missing. Being the top best in quality and quantity production control, I held that position for most of the time and was never given the opportunity to design.
That is when I decided to embraced it all and started my own handbag business. At first it was very difficult , yet exciting. Not only I had to learn how to design but also how to fix leather sewing machinery when they broke. Nevertheless, designing had become my true and deepest passion.
After losing my best friend in a car accident, I started to wonder about my life, and I really needed to take some time off for myself.
So, I went to visit my sister in the United States. We visited a few different states, but I fell in love with the beautiful beaches in the Sunshine State. It wasn’t until after countless invitations from my sister to return, that I decided to leave my parents, my five furry rescued friends(one of them I brought later to the States, who lived to be 18 years old), and my business behind, to start a new beginning. First to learn a third language. Second, to decipher how I could continuo or start my own handbag business in a foreign country with something different that could have a better and positive impact in the environment. While growing up on a small farm in South of Brazil, the concern with protecting and preserving the environment was already deeply embedded at a very young age. It was a constant fight with people who would leave their trash on our pastures as they went swimming in the river passing through our lands. This led me to search for materials that could be transformed, recycled or upcycled to diminish the environmental waste and disposal. Shortly, I came across an interesting article talking about how women from little fishing riverside communities were tanning fish skin to thrive and survive. I looked more into it, and realized it was something unique, and more importantly, sustainable, which I wanted to explore and to try it out. That was the foundation of Marli Fish Leather Purses.
It is my endless passion that leads me in the art of transforming fish leather into a genuine and unique gem. Marli Purses are one-of-a-kind, exclusive handbags created to satisfy a select, sophisticated and demanding clientele, who are searching for a sustainable and eco friendly fashion.
Marli