They call me Ixchel.

I am the goddess of the Moon, the one who is always carrying a rabbit in her arms, the one who began to weave long before the world existed and the one who, with the thread of one of her weaves, set the universe in motion.

It was I who thousands of years ago taught the Mayan women to weave with the skill of a spider; the one that gave them the necessary instruments to express a complete new language in textile pieces and the one that continues to take care of them while they do their work.

They called me with their laughter. They were amused and entertained, weaving shapes that they had never woven before. They were immersed in the task of projecting the garments with which they cover their own naked body into a new object. Such intimacy amused them and a smile appeared on their faces with every stitch they made.

After a few weeks, the female figures they were working on took their final form: they were bags that their creators carried on their shoulders. They kept all kinds of objects inside them. They were happy. I smiled with them because my language was still alive. Even better: it was evolving.

Process

Fashion designer Christopher Peters rose to fame after founding the label Creatures of The Wind in 2007 with Shane Gabier. A little over a decade later, in 2018, he decided to separate from that venture and created a new brand: CDLM (an acronym for the Spanish phrase “Cueva de las Manos”).

There, Christopher has been able to take liberties when designing, such as producing in a more sustainable way, putting into practice concepts such as upscaling and recycling materials, or simply letting his creative ideas flow freely to present surprising results.

This work philosophy is shared by Loona, so we immediately thought of him when we were choosing who will be in charge of our Collaboration Ten. A collection where design values ​​coexist with craftsmanship in a balanced way.

“The design came to me after a long reflection on the relationship between clothing and accessories. Also after reflecting on the moments in which aesthetics is decorative and those in which it is functional”, Christopher tells us.

From this exploration emerged a design that is familiar in principle, but new at the same time, since it re-signifies an everyday accessory. We’re talking about the design of a piece of lingerie from the 30s embodied on a bag.

“I tried to take recognizable elements of lingerie, like necklines, and transform them into something that wasn’t an object, but a piece of clothing. That’s where the idea of ​​translating lingerie into something that is highly functional, like a bag, comes from”, says Christopher.

Once the design was defined, Christopher decided that the pieces would be crocheted. By that moment we immediately knew that the ones who could bring his vision to life would be the artisans who collaborate with the organization Aid to Artisans Mexico.

In our Collaboration Four “Our Flowers”, the hands of the chiapas artisans from ATA were responsible for creating the pieces; on this occasion the material authors of the bag are the artisans from Mérida who also collaborate with this organization. A job that’s done with all the care in the world, and where time and patience also play a big role: bringing each bag to life takes a week of work.

Guillermo Jester, ATA Mexico’s Sales and Marketing Director, remembers the beginning of this collaboration: “When we work with new pieces we receive a draft, in this case from Christopher. We translated his ideas into a pattern that allowed us to see how many stitches we would have to take out to make the correct samples.”

Every first time represents a challenge, as Guillermo also explains: “It was a piece that (the artisans) had never done before; they were not sure if they could do it, but in the end it turned out very well. At first they laughed when they saw the design they were working on.”

And it is understandable. It’s a recognizable yet surprising silhouette. A piece with a language that evokes the past and resignifies known elements, such as lingerie or a bag. It will not only change the lives of its users, but that of the people who worked creating it. Hand in hand with organizations like ATA, and projects like the ones we commissioned within Loona, artisans can develop not only their design skills, they also see in this work an important source of income to support their families and at the same time keep alive a craft for which they have devoted their entire lives.