We believe in supporting talented artisans and their handmade traditions in Guatemala. We are absolute sticklers for handmade beauties, and believe in the positive impacts associated with supporting women in particular to have additional income sources through flexible at-home work, as is the case with our textile production (weaving and embroidery).

We love working with natural dyes. We use local plants found around towns, indigo from El Salvador, and cochineal from Mexico. We work mainly with cotton for new textiles, though we are also exploring the use of local hand-spun wool and maguey (cactus fiber).

 

Backstrap weaving is the most traditional form of Maya weaving, and it is an ideal form for women to work from home, on their own time and rhythm. Many different steps such as ikat knotting, dyeing, and setting up the backstrap looms are performed by women who prefer these tasks. But the actual weaving is distributed to individual weavers as much as possible in order to spread out the economic benefit resulting from the commissioned work.

Handmade traditions are region-specific in Guatemala, and artisan groups have limited production capacity when it comes to truly handmade processes (because it's time consuming!). So in order to increase social impact from production, we do our best to incorporate new techniques. This means adding handmade tassels, hand-embroidery, hand-painted ceramic beads, hand-carved jade pieces, etc. along with leatherwork that adds both versatility and durability to our designs.

 

For our boots: