I was born in a seaside resort with a fishing harbour and, while I'm not a fishing expert, I've always been fascinated by the work of the local fishermen.
I could spend days looking at the nets drying along the harbour or at the fishermen quietly mending them.
This is why, even when I was a young girl, I often thought it would have been interesting to employ some of the materials used by fishermen for other applications.
I've never been interested in lures, though their colours often caught my eye, but in re-using elements such as the cork floats or the needles employed to make or mend nets.
Indeed, the net needle always aroused my interest and wonder since it's a very old yet extremely simple wooden tool.
There are specific fishing villages and towns in Italy where the local social history is almost "woven" in the fishing nets: the latter were often made by women, who, generation after generation, produced amazing fishing or hunting nets.
In the past there were entire villages where women were employed in such business and the local streets and squares were open air workshops where
nets were produced and social relationships strengthened since women talked about different topics while their fingers quickly worked on the nets.
Archaeological findings even proved the the net needle hasn't changed much throughout the centuries. In fact if you visit museums in Italy you will probably be able to see net needles from the Roman times and compare them with contemporary needles, spotting very few differences.
The length of net needles usually varies and nowadays plastic ones are more common than wooden ones. It takes great skill and practice to use this tool and to thread it to make a net. Usually the cord used to make a net is wound round the centre part of the needle. In the past many fishermen's families were even able to spin the linen or hemp cord they needed to make the nets.
For years I have been thinking about how to transfer my fishing inspirations to fashion and a while back I took some notes about either applying old net-making techniques to knitwear or using lements from the fishing tradition for accessories.
I abandoned my fishing inspirations as I was too busy working on other stuff, but it came back a few days ago when I passed in front of Lundgrens Fiskredskap in Stockholm's Gamla Stan (address: Storkyrkobrinken 12).
They have a great selection of cork floats and light wooden/plastic net needles that could be perfectly reused for my plans. The shop also has a great net assortment and makes nets on
special requests and for different purposes such as sports or garden
applications, shipping them to all parts of the world (you can check their stock on their webshop).
Lundgrens Fiskredskap is actually considered as one of the main manufacturers
of different nets for research purposes and has a world wide reputation
since the the late 1950s for producing the best survey
nets in the world. I guess the time has come to finally resume my studies on fishing inspired fashion…
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