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Fish skin leather, onion peel dyes: sustainable fashion designers from Hong Kong put their own spin on traditional crafts
- Kinyan Lam specialises in natural dyes, working with hues tapped from the skins of foods such as onions, pomegranates and black turtle beans
- Noelle Lee is breathing new life into the old craft of fish-skin leather, which is light, thin and stronger by weight than many other types of leather, she says
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
People love avocados for their creamy and nutritious green flesh. But Kinyan Lam sees them in a different light.
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He’s drawn to the fruit’s tough and rough skin that, when boiled, can produce varied shades of pink.
Lam is a Hong Kong-based fashion designer who runs his eponymous label, as well as Genau Studio in Sai Kung, which specialises in natural dyes.
Craftsmanship lies at the core of both brands. So does sustainability, a critical issue in the second-most polluting industry in the world – one that creates about 92 million tonnes of textile waste annually, with fast fashion the biggest culprit.
And it is not just clothing waste: waste-water discharge, plastic waste and the release of toxic dyes into the ecosystem also tarnish the fashion industry’s image. Biodegradable, non-toxic and non-allergenic natural dyes offer a clean alternative.
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And some might be surprised by Mother Nature’s vast palette: Lam works with 440 tones of natural dyes, including hues tapped from the skins of foods such as onions, pomegranates and black turtle beans that are commonly used in Latin American dishes such as black bean soup and gallo pinto (rice and beans).
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