Carla Fernández, a visionary of Mexican fashion

The fashion designer Carla Fernández will hold an exhibition called “A Mexican Fashion Manifesto”, from March 25 to June 25 at the Franz Mayer Museum, with the intention of awakening the sensitivity of viewers towards fashion as a discipline that contributes to change and social cohesion.

There are 198 pieces of headdresses, shoes and accessories that are displayed paying tribute to Mexican and world artisans. The designs make a historical tour of the native Mexican culture, demonstrating that despite the time that has elapsed, they have not lost their validity and are still as current as when they were made on the ancestral looms.

“We must attend to the artisan processes that connect the heart with the hands and that is why we make garments that are made to last, that serve as if it were an open book. In the exhibition you will see a manifesto of fashion in resistance where we express that tradition is not static, that being original is going back to the origin, each of these points is briefly developed in order to understand at what moment we are in fashion and towards where we want to go, what we have learned from the past, what we are learning in the present and where we are headed”, said Carla

This Saturday, before opening the exhibition to the public, Florence Müller, curator and historian of fashion and art, will give a conference. She has also been the curator of Carla’s work for a long time, of whom she affirms that from the very moment she discovered her work, which unites traditional patterns and textures with contemporary fashion, she wanted to accompany her as she has. done since then.

“Between Mexican and French fashion there is a big difference, in France everything is centralized, since the big workshops and fashion houses are only in Paris. While in Mexico haute couture is everywhere. However, in both countries it is not the machines that are behind the entire manufacturing process, but the people who work with love and knowledge”, said Florence Müller.

During the exhibition, short videos are shown about the work of his collaborators who use ancient techniques represented in their works. For her, simple shapes like the squares that have been used in Mexico for thousands of years are the essence of sophistication. Carla has an itinerant laboratory called Taller Flora where she has worked with 164 artisans in 15 states and 39 places.

“Great fashion figures have told us that we do folk, I believe that folk and haute couture can be done, which is what we are showing in this exhibition, haute couture in Mexico is made in the jungles, the mountains, in the rural communities, I am obsessed with San Juan Chamula, with all these beautiful processes that have been using the same utensils for more than 3,000 years, which is also a reflective and magical process where they transform the earth into a garment,” said Carla.

The exhibition comes from the Denver Art Museum and will continue to Paris, it reflects Carla’s philosophy at the time, who since she was young has wanted to keep the traditions of Mexico alive. The tour of the exhibition will be guided and will be accompanied by talks and workshops. Information on these activities is available on the museum’s website.

“It is important to show at the Franz Mayer museum how Carla Fernández has highlighted the name of Mexico, we are not a museum that is in charge of emerging projects, we are interested in being able to make talent visible and show how Mexico has become a vanguard in terms of design and the way he is interpreting it”, expressed the general director of the museum, Giovana Jaspersen.

Carla assures that designers are accused of being frivolous, fashion is considered superficial, but she considers that this is a misconception because it is one of the most beautiful and complex arts.

The work he has done in collaboration with Mexican artisans has been exhibited individually in museums such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston, Museo Jumex and Centro Cultural España in CDMX, Heath Ceramics in San Francisco, and the Fashion Institute. of Technology in NYC, RISD Museum in Rhode Island, among others.