Traveled Eye
I find myself in Lima growing up in a city of elegance and wonder.
Early on - grazing markets of all kinds with my mother. She had the eye and curiosity that I find myself with. After school I was often asked to design my own clothes. Selecting fabric and styles from European magazines was fun. And to have them reinterpreted in ateliers of knitters, weavers, shoemakers And only shop at silver studios, tailors, ceramic studios, carpet weavers and alpaca weaving studios was inspiring.
My early training ignited an everlasting global fascination with the handmade, crafts and artisans.
Summer vacations on rural Amazonian Islands or Andean Coffee Plantations or Coastal Deserts always became the immediate love for the indigenous inhabitants and their crafts. Like the Shipibo and their geometric patterns that are still with me at every moment.
My interests were vast and yet Design and Art were always the most natural forms of expression, paired with Photography, Drawing, Aquarell and the Textile Arts.
After graduating from Fashion Institute of Technology from Fashion, Textile Design, Fabric Styling and Museum Studies, my path led me to Paris where I took course work at Parsons School of Design for Photography, Paper and Fiber Arts.
I was invited to Tokyo by Onward, for a design project of futuristic swimwear. I was extremely attracted to Japanese esthetics and embraced the literature, cinema, style and textile arts. It is another culture so dear to me in every day expression.
Later living between northern Italy, Southern France and Munich added the love for the Mediterranean lifestyle.
Extensive travel around the world for research and design led me to immerge myself with Indian textile finesse and craft riches.
I was so enamored with Khadi Fabric upon discovering it while on a taxi ride through Mumbai. The driver seamed to be an animal worshipper and his entire Fiat like car was full of animal photos adorned with garlands. He told me. Madam, I have to show you something incredible. A store of hand spun cotton from villages all around India. As I entered the Khadi Emporium, which was the largest in the Country, i was so blown away that I decided to research everything about this Village Industry movement of Mahatma Gandhi, and I visited most small Khadi Stores from the smallest in the high upper Ganges Himalayas through the various regions along the Ganges River and further to the South of India.
On this journey my curiosity about Meditation and Yoga developed and brought me to become a student and practitioner of Vedanta and Meditation to this day. Many journeys and intense ascetic practices in the upper Himalayas also opened rural Indias Craft Villages to me and my fascination with handmade traditions in India became the main interest at that time.
My home base was mainly New York, from where I traveled back and forth. Secretly I had been dreaming about rural design work in Africa and I was asked to develop collections of baskets for homeware brands in Europe and the US in rural Uganda and Ghana. While living in Kampala I traveled to many countries throughout Africa. Continuous research and the embracing of old techniques and developing and furthering new ways of expressing them as innovation in design. Usually meeting the artisans near their houses under a large Mango - or Avocado - or in Ghana a Neem Tree. Moments of non verbal communication with artisans became magical moments. We understood each other, there was exciting creative energy and the rare crafted piece from far away would end up in Paris or Tokyo and Los Angeles as a refined object.
After many counter balancing summers in Puglia or Panaera, where I could nurture the love for unusual simplistic streamlined minimalistic architecture. Moving my Studio to another South has closed the circle of search of home for me that I was looking for since leaving Peru with my parents as a girl.
Continuous research and embracing and saving ancient master craft techniques and pairing them with modern shapes and detail are my extreme passion.
The Editions have themes and stories from my world travels. In a way: Fusion Design. There will be collaborations with Artists and Artisans along the way. I decided not to follow Collections in the sense of always new , but rather Sets that have additions with constant flow of ideas and making. Most pieces are one of a kind. Away from the system of the pressure of new collections all the time. Our Sets will be a natural relaxed evolution of what comes as it comes and is needed naturally. Flow in being and flow in thinking merge. Elements of my favorite destinations will reflect in the details and sometimes the whole.
A steady and a movable. A reminder of the oneness of everything in its impermanence with mindfulness in our choices of what we use and surround us with.