Fair Trade Fashion and Design

"Foundation Chol Chol; Mapuche Traditions; Fashion with Integrity"

Today fair trade brands are hardly succeeding in bringing ethical products into the high fashion/design world because they more concerned with story than product aesthetic.  When fair trade organizations do use design, they tend to import Western designers to “instruct” indigenous artisans how to make products they deem marketable.  We are improving upon these paradigms by implementing a design innovation process that includes indigenous artisans. Mapuche women have been making clothes and textiles all their life and have much to teach us when it comes to imagining interesting patterns.

With the Chol Chol Foundation, VOZ is presenting bold innovations from the traditional fashion industry, the fair trade industry and microfinance programs. Unlike our fashion peers, VOZ prioritizes livable wages and ecologically-pristine practices. Rather than treating indigenous Mapuche artisans as producers of “ethnic” souvenirs, we recognize their remarkable skills and collaborate with them to reach more design-conscious (and lucrative) international markets with high-value apparel. By emphasizing the world-class quality of their textiles and adding design innovation, branding and marketing, will help Mapuche women, and fair trade, break out of the gift/souvenir industry and into the fashion field, a market an order of magnitude larger. We are innovating in ways that respect the past, while offering a new path to the future for the Mapuche people.

Design Brainstorming with Mapuche Women