Shipibo-Konibo Young Artisans & Fashion Designers

By the end of june three young Shipibo artisans met Braulia Puma, an Andean expert in embroidery in the city of Cusco. In the high part of Chincheros, at her home, Braulia shared with us traditional techniques of waist loom with organic fibers as cotton, sheep and alpaca wool. It was a wonderful sharing experience between the Andean and the Shipibo Culture.

There we also met our long term partner Xapiri, an Amazonic Art Gallery and store, and Hilo Cusco, a store created by the fashion designer Eibhlin Cassidy. Along with Eibhlin, Eva and Fiorella were able to model some of their pieces to announce this new collaboration in social networks. Together we are dreaming of a Kene Nete Fashion Show at the Qorikancha, the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco late 2020.

We were also able to visit some stores that showed interest in reselling the pieces created by the collective while studying the existing market in Cusco. Thanks to the dedication, lots of love together with the help of Nils Lange and Nekane Santos an old garage turned into a beautiful classroom with big tables, sewing machines and a bookcase with work materials, plants and illustrated walls.

The outreach had different approaches, first we addressed artisan mothers to explain the project so that they can extend the invitation to family member who may be interested in participating. It was gratifying to share with them the concerns of maintaining and spreading the traditional knowledge of their art and techniques among younger generations.

Then to address a larger group we went to a very popular Shipibo Radio “Axenon Ikanwe”. The conversation, alternated between Shipibo language and spanish, was focused around sustainable fashion design and its potential as cultural revitalization tool while generating business opportunities for the youth. It was the first time Design was approached on a shipibo radio show and many questions were raised among the listeners. This made the young shipibo women who pushed for this initiative very proud, pioneers and empowered.

Every day our team is growing and now we have two more volunteers, Camerina (from California), who supports with coordination and creat; and Caroline, a Peruvian fashion design student, who supports us on fashion sketch and creative thinking. 

We are looking forward to share all about sustainable fashion, the impact of fast fashion in on our planet and the need to create in symbiosis with our environment and its resources in a respectful way as little envoronmental impact as possible. 

We are grateful to receive support from other artists like Timo Rissanen and Holly Mc Quillan. They donated their book Zero Waist Fashion Design, with relevant theoretical information with a practical and visually well-designed pieces patterns that are key as a starting point for our collection. They are genius of contemporary and eco-friendly fashion design and we are very thankful for this collaboration.

With our communications coordinator and film maker Gabriela Delgado Maldonado we recorded the video presenting the project, where the artisans model their own creations and show the Kené´s potential, using the economy of colors characteristic of minimalist design. We also thank Robin, "El Búho", an electronic music producer who elevates cumbia to musical poetry, creating a fusion between dancing beats and different birds singing. He gave us the rights to use his music to create an adequate environment for the video. We feel very happy with the final result, we hope you like it too!

Thanks to you this micro project has grown into a bigger project, and so it does the the need to continue raising funds. With eyes on the future, we trust that design and art will open doors for the creation of this Shipibo youth group to stand out and inspire the whole world.

Irake-Thank you!

Links:

• The esence of Kene Nete in video
• Kene Nete- Shipibo Collective, Facebook
• Kene Nete- Instagram