I design bags and accessories in collaboration with a collective of women in Portugal. The women I work with are women who have knowledge in creating in traditional craftsmanship from their local region. We started in collaboration with one person, now we have grown to 15 people.
I believe that the product always comes first and then the brand arrives. Our bags are a products of collective intelligent, and also a product that holds many stories, beliefs, traditions, history and memories combined before it becomes a brand. As a collaborator, my value lies in creating a brand that allows the handcraft to be preserved continue to live and breathe through its modern iterations- staying connected how its aesthetics continues to stay relative and valued in contemporary society today.
In the work that I do, I constantly ask the question “What does industrial craftsmanship looks like in the fashion industry?” Everything needs money. We need commerce to make things happen and also to allow the legacy of things to remain among us wheather in traditional form or contemporary.
For me, I see my role as a co- creator/ mediator between the fashion industry and the craftmans. It is valuable for me form the craftwomen to know how the world receive their work.
Boan Stay = Harmonia
I think because of my work, that is one of many reason I love about Boan Stay. The space put together the past and present coincide beautifully in a harmonic way.
The trees, nature, the castle, the buildings, and the people are blending together- and you can feel and have a very unique experience of Seocheon, Seoul, Korea.
Visiting Korea for a few days, I think there is a double movement that happens lively in Korea. There are as much people who visit Korea as many Koreans who travel out to see the world. In that sense there is the great impact about that double movement, which makes Korea even more culturally rich and dynamic.
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Montserrat Alvarez created HEIMAT ATLANTICA with the aim of transforming and preserving specific know-hows from the Atlantic coast.
HEIMAT BAG is the first of the projects. It is a collage from Sargadelos porcelain, traditional hand-woven reed Portuguese basket and handcrafted leather. She composed it for her personal use two years ago, it helps finding LOVE.
Born in A Coruña, Spain, she lives and works in Paris.