Sealskin enters high fashion

Atuagagdliutit, one of Greenland’s major newspapers, says the Italian designers, Prada and Dolce et Gabbana, will include brightly dyed sealskin clothing in their upcoming fall fashion collections.

"People like the material. You can say what you want about the colours, but that is what is needed to sell to southern Europe at present," Michael Køllgaard Nielsen, the boss at Greenland’s sealskin exporter, Great Greenland, told Atuagagdliutit.

Nielsen said Great Greenland is also entering the Finnish market and promoting sealskin products in Japan, Korea, Russia and China.

"We have been very lucky that the market has expanded simultaneously with the growing liberalism in both Russia and China. That means we have two huge market areas that can be developed," Nielsen said. "Russia has a long tradition of using fur. They have a healthy and sound attitude towards fur, and that means we have a market [there] today."

Last year Great Greenland bought 100,000 sealskins from Greenlandic hunters and trappers.

"But one should not forget that fashion changes very rapidly, so Great Greenland does not rely entirely on fashion alone. This year it is sealskins, next year it could be used car tires. Therefore it is important not to concentrate on fashion alone, but to maintain and develop customers that use furs when fashion recedes," Nielsen said.