From smelly fish to fashion

Costa Rican women have become tanners, making handbags.

- Costa de Pájaros

On a beach in Costa Rica, as fishermen land the day's catch, two women are hard at work on a slimy sea bass skin, rubbing, scraping washing and tanning the hide to turn it into leather.

Two years ago, both Mauren Castro, 41, and Marta Sosa, 70, were stay-at-home moms dependent on their fishermen husbands to provide for their families of four and six, respectively.

Today, they are part of the all-female Piel Marina (Marine Skin) cooperative, which turns fish skins that used to be discarded at sea into sustainable fashion.

For generations, fishing was the economic mainstay in Costa de Pajaros, a village situated about 100km west of the capital San Jose.

But fishermen say regulations aimed at making stocks more sustainable, which this year included a complete ban on fishing from May to July, have made it harder to live off the sea.

Enter the NGO MarViva, which helped train 15 women to establish themselves as seafront tanners two years ago.

The women were sceptical at first about the sartorial possibilities of fish skins.