From Sandoná to Milan

Like her mother and grandmother, Aydé Montezuma learned to weave iraca palm as a young girl in Sandoná, a small village in Nariño Department. There are thousands more women engaged in the same type of craftwork in this coffee-growing region of Colombia. But only Aydé and her sombreros have made it to the runways of Milan, the world's fashion capital.

Her "arrival" was neither a coincidence nor an indulgence. It was the fruit of a successful joint venture by the Colombian government, the private sector and a group of young designers and female artisans. The "Identidad Colombia" project was designed and headed up by Artesanías de Colombia, a semi-public enterprise employing 350,000 Colombian workers, which has been supporting the craft industry for the past 40 years.

Cecilia Duque Duque, the general manager of Artesanías de Colombia, recounts how the concept of using the power of fashion to launch the craft industry was there from the very beginning. It echoes the organization's two main strategies, namely to use design as a tool for improving the quality of handicrafts to expand their commercial potential and to open up new markets to help artisans boost their income.

The "Casa Colombiana" program, an exhibition of hand-made furniture and articles for the home combining the talents of decorators, designers and artisans, is one example of the implementation of these strategies. The "Casa Colombiana" is a kind of trade fair within another trade fair, "Expoartesanías," (a crafts show) held every December in Bogota. This annual exhibition, bringing together 800 handpicked artisans known for the quality and originality of their work, is one of a kind, attracting more than 100,000 visitors every year. According to Cecilia Duque Duque, nowadays, the Colombian public no longer sees handicrafts only as souvenirs for tourists, but values them as bona fide grass-roots expressions of the nation's cultural heritage.

Moreover, for many Colombians, the "Identidad Colombia" project has another essential goal, namely to introduce Colombia to the world as a creative, dynamic nation, in contrast to its image as a society besieged by violence and crime, as it is generally depicted in the international media. Colombia, the birthplace of great poets, novelists, painters, sculptors, musicians and, lately, actors and film makers, wants to demonstrate its ability to break new ground in the field of design and fashion.

With the help of Colombia's First Lady, Lina María de Uribe, and the Instituto para la Exportación y la Moda (INEXMODA), the Export and Fashion Institute, Artesanías de Colombia met with a group of young designers early in 2003 to propose that they work with artisans to incorporate handicrafts into their clothes lines and collections.

In the words of Cecilia Duque Duque, "I believe that the latest trend in fashion is regionalism, ethnicity, not in a folkloric or nostalgic sense, but as a cultural expression setting our designers and artisans apart from others without this clear identity."

The offer was accepted by a group of designers. One of them, the young designer María Luisa Ortiz, was drawn to the items woven by Aydé Montezuma and her colleagues in the Sandoná Artisans' Association, in particular, her iraca palm sombreros.

A Long Road

Before making it to domestic and international fashion runways, the women weavers of Sandoná worked for many years with Artesanías de Colombia which, for the past four decades, has been helping Colombian artisans enhance the value of their products and get a higher return on their labor.

Like millions of artisans around the world, Aydé Montezuma and her colleagues faced all sorts of constraints. A lack of credit, problems securing supplies of needed inputs, poor organization preventing them from filling large orders in a timely fashion, an ignorance of trends in consumer tastes and preferences and limited management and marketing skills are only a few of the most common obstacles they were up against.

Aydé, like her mother and grandmother, was in the habit of selling her work to local middlemen or occasional buyers, who would market the products in large urban population centers. With no clear idea of their own costs, they set their prices without knowing whether they were actually making any profit and, on more than one occasion, suffered losses when buyers refused to pay for their original orders.

With the support of organizations like Artesanías de Colombia and the U.S. NGO Aid for Artisans, the women weavers of Sandoná began taking training courses to learn how to avoid may of these pitfalls. They learned how to calculate the cost of the inputs used in their products, as well as the cost of their own labor. "Before, we used to set a price without giving it any real thought," remarked Aydé Montezuma. "Now, we know the cost of each sombrero."

A basic sombrero, which takes somewhere around 10 hours to weave, costs 10,000 Colombian pesos. A fine sombrero, which can take a couple of weeks to make, costs 40,000 Colombian pesos. A top-of-the-line sombrero, with a special finish and suppleness, can take a month to make and can cost somewhere around 80,000 Colombian pesos.

Aydé Montezuma and her colleagues also learned to demand signed purchase orders, downpayments of 50 percent of the invoice price and payment against delivery, or within two weeks in the case of a good customer.

Another lesson they learned had to do with the need to control the quality of their handicrafts and to diversify their output. In addition to sombreros, the weavers also make clothes hampers, bags, purses, placemats and figures for Nativity scenes.

The women of Sandoná have an advantage since Artesanías de Colombia opened a design laboratory in Pasto, the capital of Nariño Department. Now, they have somewhere to go to get the latest information on new trends in colors, shapes and sizes and to take training courses in craftwork and business management.

Aydé Montezuma has been involved in Expoartesanías, the major showcase for Colombian handicrafts, several times. In order to be eligible to display their work, artisans must meet specific standards of quality and must show five new products with sales potential. Last year, the Sandoná Artisans' Association introduced a new sombrero design and line of decorative accessories for the table, including placemats, runners, breadbaskets, napkin rings and coasters. One of Aydé's brothers, who is also an artisan, has turned out to be one of the Association's most creative members, proposing lines of iraca palm furniture and articles combining iraca palm with other materials such as yarn or leather.

Artesanías de Colombia is also promoting a productive chain program designed to interlink all elements of the craft sector, from miners and growers producing needed raw materials, to artisans, to marketing firms. These alliances promote cooperation among different stakeholders to enhance their efficiency and competitiveness, allowing them to engage in business activities which they could not undertake on their own. They also encourage quality control in each link of the productive chain. The iraca palm chain is one of 11 operational productive chains serving over 6,400 artisans.

Productive chains do not operate in a void. To help improve conditions with a view to the development of the craft industry, Artesanías de Colombia enters into regional competitiveness agreements with state and local government agencies, chambers of commerce, trade associations and grassroots and producer organizations. In the case of the iraca palm chain in Nariño, such agreements helped train farmers, improve crops, form farmer organizations, devise a business plan for the productive chain and develop better technology.

Moreover, Artesanías de Colombia has been certified by the Colombian Institute of Technical Standards to display the quality seal "Made by Hand" designed to help market and negotiate preferential tariffs for products made by hand using traditional methods. So far, nine artisans in the Nariño iraca palm chain are certified.

Medellin, Bogota and Milan

"Identidad Colombia's" first fashion show launching the products developed as part of the joint venture by the designers and artisans was held in March of 2003 in Medellin, the site of the headquarters of INEXMODA and the stronghold of Colombia's textile industry.

Designer María Luisa Ortiz commissioned several sombreros from the weavers of Sandoná specifically for the occasion, to be modeled in the runway show. Her specifications with respect to crown height, brim width, colors and sizes were conveyed to the weavers through Artesanías de Colombia. The "natural" colors of Sandoná sombreros are white, brown and walnut. But iraca palm can also be dyed many unconventional colors such as fuchsia, orange, blue or jet-black.

Other designers worked with artisans in other areas of the country, reinterpreting and adapting traditional materials and designs for different uses. For example, one of the designers made sashes and bags from woven fabrics produced in La Guajira normally used to make hammocks.

The runway show was held as part of Colombia's main fashion showcase, an event attracting almost as much national press coverage as the Miss Colombia beauty pageant. Since fashion is a billion-dollar, worldwide industry, the event was also attended by representatives of numerous clothing manufacturers, department stores and exporters.

Among those attending the event was the President of the Italian Fashion Industry Association, Mario Boselli. According to Cecilia Duque, this important visitor left with a wonderful impression of this Colombian initiative combining fashion and handicrafts.

Given the impact of the event in Medellin, it was decided to repeat the experience later that same year in Bogota, at the craft exhibit, Expoartesanías. This time, the runway show was attended by Fabio Valencia Cossio, Colombia's ambassador to Italy at the time, who was quite taken with the idea of showing the collections in Milan. The diplomat brought the offer to Boselli, who agreed to include a Colombian runway show as part of the Women's Fashion Fair.

With private backers, the "Identidad Colombia" runway show was held in Milan in March of 2004. Prior to the runway show before an audience of 700 spectators, the collections were introduced at a public press conference. Cecilia Duque recalls how the Colombian media covered the entire event as if it were the finals of an international soccer tournament. As she so aptly puts it, "Colombia was brought to a complete standstill."

The Colombian delegation included the designers as well as three artisans, one of whom was Aydé Montezuma, representing the iraca palm chain. The young artisan, on her first trip abroad, marveled at the experience.

She noticed that, as a result of the runway show, the Colombian public began to seek out the Sandoná sombrero. At Expoartesanías 2004, the public would approach the Association's booth and ask for "the sombrero that was shown in Milan." The artisan estimates that sales have increased by 30 to 40 percent.

According to Cecilia Duque, the "Identidad Colombia" project has benefited the fashion industry as well as the national craft industry. It made the designers aware of how handicrafts can enhance the value of their creations. And recognition by the Colombian public has been a powerful stimulant for the craft industry. As she puts it, "success opens doors for other groups to begin making items in new shapes and colors, putting new life into their handicrafts."

Artesanías de Colombia and INEXMODA are planning more runway shows of the same type, both in Colombia and in Europe, with the backing of other sponsors.

Aydé Montezuma, in turn, talks about how the women weavers of Sandoná are continuing their work and taking great pains to turn out first-rate products. Now, her dream is to take part in an international craft show. "What happened in Milan was a beginning. We want to promote our work abroad, to conquer Europe and the United States." That is how she sees it. "We're getting ready, because we know that, some day soon, we're going to be competing on the international market."