VCU Fashion Students Return from Guatemala
VCU fashion design and merchandising majors along with their professor, Linda Lee, have just returned from Guatemala on Sunday. This morning, they spoke eloquently about their experience to an audience including VCU Education Abroad staff, the executive director of the Office of International Education, the head of the Fashion department, and the dean of the VCU School of the Arts.
The project was in collaboration with the Highlands Support Project and Richmond's own AlterNatives fair trade shop located in Carytown. They spent their time in Guatemala working with local women artisans to develop a clothing line (including accessories) to market in the US. The results are amazing. Not only are the products that they created beautiful, but the impact that the experience had on the participants is deep. The students expressed their sincere love of the people and culture of Guatemala, and many are planning to return in the near future. The garments that are featured below should be available for purchase at AlterNatives in Carytown in the spring. Also, keep an eye out for the VCU-HD-TV three-part series about this project.
For more information, contact VCU Education Abroad (abroad@vcu.edu) or Ms. Linda Lee at (ltlee@vcu.edu)
The garments
The students
The accessories group
Linda Lee
Student James Bilbo presenting the line name, "Darla Luz" which may soon be trademarked
Comments
What a wonderful project you are doing! As a long-time resident of the Lake Atitlan region of the Guatemalan highlands, I am very aware of the lack of economic opportunity for my Mayan friends. Your efforts to sell their weavings puts a very large smile on my face. I see you have chosen a huipil from Xela(left), and one from Santa Catarina(right), in your third photo above. Good choices. It is a bit ironic that the woman holding the reddish huipil is also wearing pants that are derived from another traditional Guatemalan fabric, which was bought here in 1849 by a New York tailor on his was to the California gold rush. I hear that Levi Straus has done quite well with it, and I hope you do also. Best of luck.
Posted by: Lake Atitlan | July 14, 2007 6:47 PM