Daniel Ankarstrand: redefining luxury

Swedish leatherworker Daniel Ankarstrand transformed his personal obsession into a full-time profession three years ago. Originally working as a family therapist, craft was a way for him to relax. His obsession with perfecting techniques and working with new materials motivated him to start his company, Sibirien Stockholm, named after the area of the capital where he lives and works. He specialises in small goods made with fish leather, an eco-friendly byproduct of the food industry. The discarded skin of fish from Norwegian salmon fisheries is processed at Icelandic tanneries and transformed by Ankarstrand into delicately made high-end watch straps, wallets and other small goods at his atelier. Everything is handcrafted and retains the patina and texture of the original Scandinavian source. His aim is to redefine luxury, showing how exotic materials can be developed in sustainable ways.

How did you start leatherworking?

I think it was in 2014, I got an iPad case from my mother-in-law and it was the wrong size, and when I went back to the store they didn't have the ones that I liked. I thought, okay 100 euros for two pieces of leather, this is ridiculous, I can do this myself, so I started Googling. Leatherwork has really boomed in the few last years but in 2014 there wasn’t really a big community. I went to the library and got some books. There was an English guy on YouTube showing pretty basic stuff,  but there wasn’t much more. But I was hooked. I loved the craft. It's pretty easy to start doing it and you don't need machines in the beginning. You can start by hand. I get obsessed with everything I do and this was the same. I became infatuated by the stitching. Improving my technique has always been my driving force, and also sometimes my curse! I feel I'm so into the details that it’s hard to get the work out.

What interests you about working with different materials?

I started working with fish leather pretty early on. In the beginning I went to second-hand stores and bought old bags to use the material. My original thinking when I started was to always work with reused material. I stumbled upon fish leather on a new-age site in Sweden. I loved the thinking of using material from the fish industry that is just being thrown away. It's also an exotic material that we have here in the north. It’s a delicate material, very, very thin. If cow leather was as thin as fish leather you could tear it apart like paper; whereas regular leather has fibres going all the same way, fish leather is more like a net, you can’t really tear it apart. It's super durable but flexible. I always reinforce it and use a lining material, and I glue it together to keep the structure.

Is the environmental aspect important to you?

Absolutely. I come from a background where I've always been working with people, but I wanted to do something to save the planet. My goal was to focus on good materials and craftsmanship, but I still want people to buy my products. It's always a balance because I don't want to just push words that don't mean anything.

What aspect of the craft do you love most?

As the business grows, the amount of time I spend doing the actual leathercraft is shrinking. I have one employee now. Besides working myself, one of my biggest loves is teaching him and seeing how he can evolve. It’s amazing. I feel proud of seeing him doing such good work. But what I love most is when I have the time and can sit down after hours, at night. From the beginning, this craft was a way for me to relax. Now my hobby has ended up as a full-time profession. But when I don't have the pressure of creating a new product, what I enjoy the most is just doing it for the fun of it.

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