Juan de La Paz, Bolivia
Juan de La Paz was founded in 2009 by designers Juan Carlos Pereira and Andrés Jordan, who collaborate with Indigenous artisans in Bolivia and Peru to create their vibrant designs. “We learn from the ancestral knowledge of these communities to take care of Mother Earth when making fashion,” says Pereira. The clothes—most of which feature the label’s signature fringing—are handmade using recycled or donated clothing and discarded textiles (the line is also made-to-order and practices zero waste). Being Bolivian, both designers say, makes sustainability both essential and obvious. “The Latin American continent has an incredible cultural heritage, and it’s characterized by an enormous textile wealth,” says Jordan. “And truly contemporary Latin American design upcycles, looks for alternative materials, collaborates with Indigenous communities, and values artisan craftsmanship.”—C.A.
Vitelli, Italy
Vitelli’s production is entirely made of knitwear-industry waste, much of it otherwise headed to landfills, which is then worked into traditional machine knits or needle-punch to create the label’s proprietary felted material—dubbed Doomboh—which is turned into crafty, raw, and tactile pieces. “The atelier inside my studio is called Organic Knitting Theater,” says Mauro Simionato, Vitelli’s founder and creative director. “Every day, we gather at the atelier and create, in a strange unison manner.” His main source of inspiration: the “music-driven, post-hippie” Italian counterculture movement that formed around the Cosmic Club on the Adriatic Riviera in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Vitelli’s taken this local scene “as a model of how to participate in—and possibly inspire—the current global cosmic scene.”—L.B.P.
In this story: hair, Shiori Takahashi; makeup, Lynsey Alexander.
