Thanksgiving (2015), Iceland. Mayura Davda‐Shah, who was on a break and visiting the country with her friends, was strolling through local markets. At one store, in particular, something caught her eye — a bracelet.
Upon inspection, she found out that this was no ordinary piece of jewellery. She didn’t know it then, but what she would learn next would one day turn into an idea for a business empire.
Inspired by that very moment, Mayura, who hails from Solapur, today runs MAYU, which creates elegant and sustainable accessories that have made their way to the ramps of Paris and Hungary.
Mayura recalls that when she first saw the bracelet, she thought it might be made from exotic material. The store owner told her that it was, in fact, made of discarded fish skin.
“I learned from the locals that the ‘leather’ of the bracelet was made sustainably from salmon skin. The skin came from fish processing units located nearby,” she tells The Better India.
While this was new to Mayura, using fish skin as leather has been commonplace in Nordic culture for centuries. The 30-year-old’s aim is to introduce this concept to India, where the animal hide is usually the more popular option for bags and accessories.
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Mayura quit her job in the engineering industry to start MAYU in 2018, with handbags made from salmon and wolfish skin as her focus.
Explaining her transition from her engineering roles to being a creative director at the venture, she says, “Although I pursued my studies, and had an early career, in science and engineering, what helped me stand out was my passion for out-of-the-box creative thinking and applying it even on the most technical job at hand.”
She adds that at MAYU, they do not feel compelled to design and create with every changing fashion season. “We chose accessories and handbags as our primary product category so that our offerings are not limited to seasons or sizes.”
MAYU has to tackle two main challenges to use discarded fish skin for its range of products. One is the dimensions of the fish skin, while the other is the consistency, she explains.
“Animal hide leather usually comes in large sizes from the processing units. These are given to brands, who then have a lot of room to play around with designs. With fish skin, however, the sleek dimensions of 15 cm x 10 cm are a limitation.”
This was when the entrepreneur thought of getting many fish skins together and stitching them into panels. This in turn would create a large canvas that would give her room to play around with designs.
For this, she came up with a plan to repurpose the loose edges and byproducts that were obtained during the stitching process into filler boards. These would be inserted into the bags to give them shape.
Mayura says that some of the fish leather that they use is hydrophobic, and is thus used to make waterproof bags. However, she adds, fish leather ages the same way as animal leather, and should be cared for in similar terms.
The processing of the fish skin into viable strips is done by a supplier in Europe. Meanwhile, artisans from Chennai stitch these strips into panels, and then, the final product.
She adds that the biodegradable waste of the factory is converted into fertilisers through a bioprocess.
Along with sustainability, the brand also believes in uplifting women through their work. “Our production team comprises over 90 per cent women from underrepresented and underprivileged backgrounds,” says Mayura.
