The Coat That Comes Back

I, the Moon, want to ask you something: did you know there are still people who check my phases before shearing a flock or sowing a field? They’ve been doing it for centuries, and they’re not wrong.

Even if I look far away, and even if some days you feel we’re very distant, I’m tied to you.

I, the Moon, want to tell you a story that happens in the south, where the wind runs hard. It’s the story of a group of women who knit and of a fiber that seems like magic.

I’ve seen them. They work with two needles and a loom, one piece at a time, keeping nothing extra.

I’ve followed them. María Abdala-Zolezzi gets the wool in Patagonia, from producers who look after the land, and from local flocks too.

I watch them. Their hands don’t neglect or waste a single thread, and every finished piece is given the name of someone they love. I want to tell you that their work follows a cycle I know well, because it looks like mine.

These women know that wool started out as grass. I was there. I saw sunlight fall on the field and turn into grass, and I saw that grass become the wool sheep wear all winter. Nothing came from nothing: it was all somewhere else first.

Now think about what happens after a sheep is shorn. The animal is lighter and goes on with its life, and the wool grows back, season after season, without anyone breaking open the ground or taking anything from anyone. The next year the sheep has its full coat again. That’s where I recognize myself: I disappear every month, and every month I come back whole.

From up here I watch those fields. I see the sheep work the soil with their hooves, and months later I see the grass grow back where they grazed. If it didn’t work that way, the land would wear out and there’d be no wool and nothing to wear against the cold.

I want to ask you why you’ve forgotten this; I want to remind you that almost everything that keeps you warm comes from a cycle, and that there are people looking after it stitch by stitch, like the knitters I’ve been telling you about.

Process

For our Collaboration 63 we invited Maydi, the Argentine knitwear brand returning to our platform for the fourth time. Few labels have come back so often, and the reason is simple: at Loona we like to work again with brands whose sustainability holds up piece by piece. Maydi has been proving it since 2014.

María Abdala-Zolezzi founded the brand on a premise that hasn’t changed in over a decade: every piece is knitted by hand from start to finish, with no stock, using Patagonian merino wool and local fibers. The producers who supply her work toward sustainable, regenerative sheep farming, and since 2018 the brand has held Wildlife Friendly certification, which vouches for a production process that respects wild fauna. The pieces come to life through techniques such as two-needle knitting and handloom weaving. “These techniques are how we show the contemporary design in each garment,” María explains.

The shared history began with Collaboration 33 and “Al son de una canción,” a collection of light textures, pastel tones and natural dyes. Then came 41, which brought in bouclé fibers and fringed vests, and after that 51, made up of sweaters, cardigans, tops and accessories.

This time she presents sustainable options for the coldest days of the year. The Amparo hat is knitted in one hundred percent bouclé, with ribbed edges and ear flaps for the cold. Another new addition is the handmade ceramic buttons that fasten the Maestro cardigan, a long piece with a shawl collar in a mohair and merino wool blend. There’s also the Aluminie bag, hand-knotted in thick virgin wool, a sculptural, soft piece made entirely from natural fibers and the closest thing to an object the brand has shown at Loona.

Rounding out the project are the Nemo Special, a cropped sweater with puffed sleeves and a sailor collar in sustainable merino wool, and the Ceylan, hand-knitted in a chunky mélange jersey stitch with tubular finishes and virgin wool.

The names of the pieces follow a house custom. As María said in an earlier Collaboration: “Every piece is special, and many are named after people I love dearly, like Teresita, my grandmother, who was someone very special to me, like a second mother. Others take their names from poems and books by my favorite writer, Jorge Luis Borges, and others have to do with my roots in Corrientes.”

After several Collaborations, this is how María sums up the connection: “I’m very happy to be part of Loona, a space where art, fashion, sustainability and ethical values all come together.” Collaboration 63 welcomes us with five pieces knitted by hand in Argentina and made to be with you for many winters to come.