Carla Fernandez

Carla Fernandez is the founder of Flora, a mobile workshop/fashion-laboratory that travels Mexico visiting indigenous
 communities, especially women’s cooperatives and creators of handmade textiles.

Flora
 has developed a unique pedagogy where participants in their workshops
 can communicate through design even in those places where only indigenous
 dialects are used.

After ten years of research Carla Fernandez has
 collected and catalogued garment designs that were
 very much at risk of extinction. Contrary to the kitsch associated with exported Mexican textiles, ancient patterning is an incredibly elaborate system of
 pleats, folds, and seams capable of constructing a vast array of garments using
 only squares and rectangles. This cultural imbued, historic system has been the source of inspiration to
 her Carla’s own label.


Carla Fernandez’s style has been described as a unique adaptation that lifts tradition
 from the realm of the static and fashion from the realm of the ephemeral.

In the process, Flora has established its
 own
 fair trade network and a set of environmental policies as an initiative
 to
 foster responsible practices in the business of fashion.



Links

"More Flora Workshop Pictures"