And after much debate and deliberation, we are thrilled to announce that we’ve named the company we are starting to produce these designs. The project has been named VOZ which means voice in Spanish, because our mission is to empower the voice of indigenous artisans we serve while helping women worldwide express their values through their style.

VOZ is committed to using design and marketing innovation to aid indigenous artisans out of poverty by connecting them to the fashion industry. “Project Chol Chol” has come a long ways since 2009, and today finally emerges as it’s own international fashion brand – with a team in the U.S. and Chile – that will work in collaboration with the Chol-Chol Foundation.

This month we are forming the company, setting up an office and design studio near Temuco, setting up production alliances with weaving cooperatives, and fundraising in Chile and California.  Next month we’ll begin sourcing parts and making the 2011 products!  To keep track of our progress you can check our website: www.madebyvoz.com, fan us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter (@madebyvoz).

Thank you for your continued support and feeback, we look forward to bringing these designs to market this year!

double wrap belt in textile and leather

thick belt in textile and leather

textile purses

textile purse on form

black and white quartered cowl

large-buttoned cowl with fringe

wrapped scarf with button and fringe

looped shawl with fringe

crocheted sweater

dress with floral pattern

*Ruana designed in 2006 by Fundacíon Fundesarte (Fundacíon para la innovacíon de la artesanía)

These designs are in production and will be available to the public in 2011. (Except the ruana, which is available now.) For wholesale or retail inquiries, please contact the Chol Chol Foundation at info@cholchol.org.

Fair trade indigenous art: preserving culture and relieving poverty.

The Foundation specializes in traditional, completely natural, Mapuche textiles and knits ranging from wall hangings, rugs, blankets, and table cloths to ponchos, shawls, scarves, hats, and gloves.

Chol Chol Foundation's exclusive fair trade store

All patterns and symbols are uniquely Mapuche, and represent cosmological stories of their religion as well as elements of the natural world.

Folded textiles woven by Mapuche artisans

The yarn used for each piece is hand-spun, and every color is dyed from natural brews of native plants and fruits.

Mural Trarikan: ceremonial Mapuche wall art

As with this Trarikan, some textiles are still made with ancient techniques involving dying with mud that is knotted with reeds. Mapuche textile art is still intimately connected with spirituality of the Mapuche people.

Palacio de la Moneda, Artasania de Chile Mapuche exhibit, Santiago

The Mapuche are best known for their craft traditions in textiles, silver jewelry, wood, and basket weaving.  Many of the patterns, symbols, and techniques still used date back to pre-colonial times.

Here are some examples from Artasanía de Chile’s gallery at la Palacio de la Meneda in downtown Santiago.

Plata

(Silver)

silver and beaded traditional Mapuche jewelry

head pieces, worn in a circle around the top of the the head.

These are clothing pins, used to hold wrapping sweaters together as you wear them.

traditional Mapuche jewlery, worn by women for ceremonies

head pieces, worn in a circle around the top of the the head.

Textil, Lana

(Textile, Wool)

The textiles at the museum represented Mapuche work from many regions, and the pieces on display were up to one hundred years old. Patterns vary from community to community, as do the colors.  Since the wool is died naturally from plants in each region, and the plant varieties differ with the terrain, the colors of textiles are unique to their origin.

Alfombra (rug), gallery de Artesanía de Chile, Palacio de la Moneda

Alfombras tradicionales, Palacio de la Moneda, Artasania de Chile exhibit

Alfombras tradicionales, Palacio de la Moneda, Artasania de Chile exhibit

alfombras tradicionales, Palacio de la Moneda, Artasania de Chile exhibit

Alfombras tradicionales, Palacio de la Moneda, Artasania de Chile exhibit

traditional Trarihues, women's belts for ceremony

ponchos, Palacio de la Moneda, Artasanias de Chile exhibit, Santiago

Madera y Cestas

(Wood and Baskets)

Mapuche spirit sculptures, wood. Palacio de la Moneda, Artasania de Chile exhibit.

Mapuche baskets, Palacio de la Moneda, Artasanias de Chile exhibit

The designs you see here are are all  from the gallery of Fundación Artesanías de Chile.  The crafts originate in communities from all over the country.  Many of these crafts are still being made and used similarly today.

Bettina, SF, storefront

How does the fashion industry work?

Who buys clothes, and who sells them?

What do people like to buy and sell in stores?

What different types of boutiques, shops and fashion corporations are in California, and how do they differ?

How do you make clothes and fashion accessories?

What makes a product “Fair Trade” and how are those products traded and sold in the world?

“Hello, my name is Jasmine, I will be working for a fair trade organization of indigenous weavers in Southern Chile to help them design a line for contemporary boutique audiences. May I ask who buys for your store, how I may contact them, and how they choose the products here? And by the way, what do you look for in design?”

Ecoboutique Ladita, SF. Eco-friendly fashion.

These are some of the mind-bogglingly large questions I asked as I began walking down bustling sidewalks of the San Francisco Bay Area shopping nexus. My little sketch book had a map-like checklist of all of the shopping streets I had come to memorize growing up as a girl here. To the South there was the Peninsula: University Avenue Palo Alto, Castro Street Mountain View, Santa Cruz Ave in Menlo Park, Saratoga. The East, there was Berkeley: Fourth Street, Telegraph, College Avenue, and Oakland and Emeryville coming up now. To the North, Marin: Mill Valley, Sausalito, Larkspur, Tiburon, San Anselmo, Fairfax, downtown Novato.  Even further North, the wine country: downtown Sonoma, Napa, St. Helena, Calistoga.  And then of course San Francisco: Mission/Valencia, Castro, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights, Hayes Valley, Union Street, Filmore Street, Haight Street, and Union Square if I dared.

The goal was to traverse as much of this territory and meet as many people as possible in two weeks, figure out how to design products that would sell in this community, and learn how to get my future fair trade products distributed in the United States.

The Store, Mill Valley

While walking door to door in search of answers and further questions, I specifically sought out these types of stores: mid to high-end contemporary boutiques (fashion, home-furnishing, and industrial design), import stores with more traditional/exotic foreign products, and eco / green / fair trade / new age stores which concentrated on social principles.  All three target markets could comfortably host products crafted in modern style which exhibited foreign aesthetics and social consciousness.  In effect, this product line will strive to bridge the gap between these three types of audiences in a new way: bringing not only uniquely interesting shapes to foreign and fair trade stores accustomed to traditional aesthetics, but also socially responsible products to the mainstream. In addition to looking for venues for the contemporary line, I also wanted to help the foundation find more places that were appropriate for their traditional products.

I wanted not only to meet these vendors for future contact, but also to hear their take on the project and any ideas they may have had to contribute. After all, they are they experts on what sells to whom.  I was also interested in seeing what sort of fashion, accessory, and product trends are appreciated most in these places and how much everything sold for. Once I explained the nature of my humanitarian-aimed project, most people were happy to offer contact and advice between customers.

In every store I deemed even remotely relevant I would follow a certain routine.  First, I would pretend to be a customer: taking particular interest in any bags, scarves, or woven/knit items in the shop that were aesthetically relevant to what I had in mind for our innovations.  When things struck me as interesting or if I wanted to figure out how they were made, I would innocently try things on in the dressing room to study them. I was interested in the shapes of soft bags, and things that looked great in textile.  The sorts of things I could imagine in Mapuche weaves. Then, depending on how welcoming the staff was or how appropriate the store fit seemed, I would strike up conversation. After a little description of my work, I would gauge how receptive the employees were and ask questions appropriately. I took note of how my design line could fit in, what sort of styles worked, who the clientele were, how much things cost, and by what process that store obtained products.

The Store in Mill Valley, CA

Through nearly a hundred of these casual interviews I learned a tremendous amount about commercial fashion, how the system works, vendors, buyers, markets, gift and fashion shows, accessory manufacturing, consignment, wholesale, profits, fashions reps, intermediaries, taxes, seasons, sizes, brands, whew!  It’s pretty complicated.

(Almost as complicated as making the multi-pocketed handbags the system operates to sell: buckles, hinges, structure, types of stitches, weight capacity, volume and lightness, lining, magnetic clasps, zippers, fabric tactility and durability – what fun!)

In general, people in the Bay Area (hippies, yuppies, hipsters, new agers, dot comers, students, professionals, etc.) were very receptive to the idea of modernly fashionable Fair Trade, and also seemed excited that indigenous people would be profiting from the designs instead of corporations. Vendors were happy to hear that the project could make the Mapuche’s hand-woven products more complimentary to their fashion selections.  A series of allies revealed themselves in this process; some store owners would get so excited as to sketch ideas that came to mind, others pointed me to interesting websites relevant to the project, others gave me cell phones numbers of people to talk to, and many were open to seeing my products once developed.

Mill Valley Hat Box, a lovely place for Mapuche scarves?