As seen in yesterday's post, Afghan women abroad have been promoting their heritage and identity posting pictures of themselves in traditional garments on social media. Rediscovering traditional garments and working with skilled artisans from different parts of the world is actually a trend that is slowly becoming the norm in fashion.
While there are still cases of fashion houses and brands appropriating traditional garments, embroideries and motifs, there are also designers who have been collaborating with artisans to deliver to consumers more unique, sustainable and handcrafted collections.
Uruguayan Gabriela Hearst (who became well-known for making the ivory ensemble donned by Dr. Jill Biden, the First Lady of the United States, at the evening that followed her husband Joe Biden's swearing-in ceremony) has often collaborated with craftspeople and indigenous artisans in her previous collections, including the nonprofit organization Manos del Uruguay.
Founded at the end of the '60s by five friends who were aware of the lack of job opportunities for rural women, Manos del Uruguay became a member of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) twelve years ago and now employs around 600 women artisans producing and selling crafts from different workshops made with local materials including leather and wool.
Hearst' S/S 22 collection features some pieces like the chunky ponchos also seen in the Resort 2022 collection created by Manos del Uruguay, but also multi-coloured crocheted separates and dresses in fine cotton based on an abstract painting Hearst created with her children and made by collective Madres & Artesanas Tex in Bolivia.
There are also other handmade elements incorporated in the designs, swatches of Navajo woven textiles by weavers from the Navajo nation. The Navajo nation women who worked on this collection, Naiomi Glasses and TahNibaa Naataanii, also went to Gabriela Hearst's fashion show, held at the beginning of September during New York Fashion Week.
On her Instagram page Hearst defined working with the Navajo community "a spiritual gift": Naiomi Glasses, a graduate of the Creative Futures Collective, a diversity, equity and inclusion marketplace for the creative industries with a mission on empowering the next generation of creative leaders from disenfranchised communities, worked on integrating the swatches into the garments.
TahNibaa Naataanii, a fifth generation Navajo weaver and sheepherder (she raises Navajo Churro sheep, harvests the wool, makes the yarn and hand-dyes her materials using plants found in the Navajo nation) did the hand work, with the help of her mother and daughter.
Hearst learnt from this experience that weaving is an artistic practice for the Navajo nation, a way of life that reconnects with the self, land, and community. As the woven textiles are considered as sacred they can't be cut, so the artisans were given the exact dimensions of the bodice of the sleeveless dress and of the suede trench coat in which they had to be integrated to make sure they perfectly fit.
Apart from handmade artisanal techniques, one of the main inspirations for this collection was the late Hester Diamond.
The indomitable and fearless New York art dealer was known for collecting what she liked rather than following trends and for an eclectic collection that went from Bernini to Bill Viola, and also included a wide variety of brightly and vibrantly coloured minerals.
Hearst collects geodes and she has often incorporated agata stone slices into her knitted dresses trapping them in webs of macramé. These designs are becoming her signature and, after appearing in her Resort 22 collection, they were included also in this season, this time in navy blue or white merino wool with colourful stones or with beige minerals.
Other designs inspired by Diamond included upcycled silk schappe dresses with multi colored pleated sleeves layered with upcycled linen, cashmere, and silk.
In a documentary accompanying Sotheby's auction of Hester Diamond's collection an interviewer asked Diamond, "Do you think you have gotten bolder as you have gotten older?". The art collector quickly answered, "It's how I have lived and will live for as long as I live" (the sentence was sampled on the runway show soundtrack by Diamond’s son, the Beastie Boys' Mike D. Hearst).
Like Diamond, Hearst seems to become bolder with each collection and to go from strength to strength with her creations that do not empower just the designer and the wearer, but also the artisans making them. This formula is actually proving quite successful with the designer: Hearst has just been nominated in the American Womenswear Designer and Accessories Designer of the Year categories at the 2021 CFDA Fashion Awards (scheduled to take place in November).
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