VOZ

Anthropologist and fashion designer, Jasmine Aarons was inspired to create her artisan wovens garment company after traveling to Chile on a post graduate fellowship. Jasmine discovered that most of these artisans were struggling to continue to practice their craft of weaving textiles of premium quality, hand-dyed natural fibers  in a global marketplace that was being flooded with poor quality “knock off” garments from Asia. Jasmine sought to offer women weavers among the Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous population, garment design knowledge that could be effective in helping them find a broader market for their remarkable textiles. Through collaborative workshops, these skilled rural weavers were taught innovative design approaches to garment making. “Everything we do is a delicate balance between trying to respect as accurately as possible local tradition and at the same time respect what people want to wear and are comfortable in, and that means softer materials and being really material conscious.”