November 9, 2001
Sealskin enters high fashion
Atuagagdliutit, one of
Greenlands 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 Greenlands 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.
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