Fish skin fashion: a dying craft by China's 'mermaid descendants'

A small minority along China’s ‘Black Dragon’ river have a long history with the water. According to legend, the Hezhen people descend from mermaids, but now some of their unique traits, such as their signature fish skin suits, are at risk of vanishing. Michelle Hennessy reports.

You Wenfeng, 68, an ethnic Hezhen woman,

poses with her fishskin clothes at her studio in Tongjiang

Ethnic Hezhen You Wenfeng's Chinese Han student learns
how to make clothes from fish skin at You's studio in Tongjiang.

Full article with image gallery on Reuters.

More about the Hezhenin the article
"Preservation of Hezhe Fish Skin tradition through Fashion Higher Education"
and fish leather in fashion in
"Fish Leather sustainability workshop:A collaborative experience amongst Nordic Fashion Universities."
Indigenous Arctic Fish skin clothing traditions:
Cultural and ecological impacts on Fashion Higher Education
All are by Elisa Palomino at Central Saint Martins, London.
See her website FISHSKINLAB

See also these articles:
The Secret Language of Salmon Skin Coats
Fish Skin Artists Share Their Skills at Smithsonian Center
Fish Skins for Frocks
Fish Skin as a Textile Material in Alaska Native Cultures
Innerskins/Outerskins: gut and fishskin

Square Back Bradel Binding Tutorial on the Pressbengel

What a delight to discover during a random web search...

Watch Queensland, Australia based Darryn Schneider of DAS Bookbinding demonstrate a square back Bradel binding (German case binding) using my instructions and the downloadable sheets for my translation of Ernst Collin's Pressbengel (as The Bone Folder).

The demonstration on YouTube is nicely done, and is a great use of the downloadable text in signatures. Intended audience is students and workshops, and it can be used for just about any common codex-based structure.

Enjoy!

Ps., I'm always happy to see bindings on the textblock by individuals and those in workshops. Bonus points for those using parchment they made from fish. ;-)

The Bone Folder by Ernst Collin.

Watch on YouTube here.

I also recommend checking out his many other tutorials, also on his YouTube Channel.

Fish Parchment and Leather Swatches

A sampler of all the fish I've made parchment from.

From top: mackerel, sea bass, lane snapper, haddock, Arctic char, Atlantic salmon.
Underbellies are lighter than tops.

Note: except for the mackerel, the skins are highly translucent.

And below, examples of commercially available tanned fish skins.
See here for more.

From the top: eel, suede trout, glazed salmon, suede salmon, glazed carp.

See also:
"Fips" and His Eels: Fish Skin in Bookbinding

Book Arts arts du livre Canada (Vol 10., Nr. 2, 2019)

"Fish Tales, experiments with fish skin for bookbinding

The New Bookbinder: Journal of Designer Bookbinders (2020)

Fritz Otto Doing a Colored Edge and Endband

↣ Happy New Year 2020! ↢

Here's hoping we don't go too full-on Weimar,

but some bindery projects will help keep us sane, maybe.

Coloring the freshly plowed top-edge using a paste paper technique.

I think I'm liking the effect!

Next, I add some shape and crispness to the rolled leather endband.

And, a little more in that spot...

OK, that's done. What's next?