Artesania Sorata – Colours from the earth

By Fashion Revolution

10 years ago

Through hand made products Artesania Sorata supports the empowerment of women and low income families in Bolivia. The income our artisans gain from making the dolls, cloth pictures, homewares and alpaca clothing enables them to provide a higher standard of living for their families.

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All of our products are made entirely by hand and all of our yarns (except the blue shades) are are dyed by hand using traditional and natural ingredients.

These natural dyes used are kinder on the environment, and ultimately kinder on the skin of the wearer.

Years of experimentation have resulted in a wealth of knowledge and range of colours that we are very proud of.

Working this way is a beautiful process of adapting to the ever shifting seasons and learning to work with the earth in a non-harmful way. The experience itself of gathering the leaves, seedpods or plants and cooking them to extract their colours is something very close to magic. We produce rich browns from walnut leaves, yellows from onion skins, purples to violent reds from cochineal (a beetle that feeds on the cacti here), and shades of vibrant greens from carrot tops and eucalyptus.

Being part of Artesania Sorata allows the artisans them to work from home, and positive change for these women is very much linked to being able to knit, sew or weave at home, and take care of their children while earning a living wage for their work.

Over the years Artesania Sorata has supported adult literacy and health programs, creativity workshops in state children’s homes and a children’s hearing program. We believe in the right for all to live a healthy life with a positive outlook for the future.

The only way that we can have a peaceful and sustainable planet is to think each act of production and purchasing through, and make educated decisions based on the ideals that give us the satisfaction that we are making responsible decisions with each act, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

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Hear from Juana, one of Artesania Sorata’s artisans, in this post

Adapted, with kind permission, from this original post