A project about friendship, coincidental encounters and remote places; about moments worth remembering, and walking our own path surrounded by beautiful people.
The Zubi girls and I met 3 years ago when I joined them to help them develop their clothing collection. They were an accessory brand until them; eager to grow and show the world what they are capable of.
Mercedes and Elena are sisters and have started their project like if they were playing. They made a couple cotton bags printed with some pictures Mercedes had taken on her trips around the globe. Friends loved the bags and they are so charismatic and spoke so passionately about them that without thinking of it the game turned into a business.
When I joined them the brand was already stablished, and they were ready to take the big step. As they say, they only wanted to add a couple of t-shirts but Fanella, my business partner at the time, and I saw the full potential and talk them into doing a proper collection.
From them on, we have always lived in different cities, so we stablished a long distance relationship. They only long distance relationship I had, that actually worked. We grew and learned and I managed to share with them all I know about fabrics without touching the fabrics. Which is a big achievement since textiles are nothing but tactile materials, the hand feel, the weight; a lot of tactile concepts that we shared through a screen 10.000 km away.
At Zubi collections are based on travels, but as Covid started and traveling was banned we had to travel with our hearts. As I was born in Argentina, currently living in Uruguay and Mercedes had travel to Argentina several times we decided to dedicate this last winter collection to the humid pampa, which is the region of the central east part of Argentina and Uruguay, where actual gauchos come from.
As we were speaking about this land and the wool at ound is from this land, a collaboration turned mandatory. It was a way of having a proper piece of the humid pampa at Zubi and, of course, an excuse to talk about wool. And I always love a good excuse to talk about wool.
In Uruguay there are twice as many sheep as there is people and it had once a high end wool fabric industry. The best wool of the world comes from the southern hemisphere, where climate is key for the growth of a lustrous and long lasting fibre.
On top of the hand knitted piece the Zubi girls and I have had a conversation about our collaboration and about wool, and about my stubbornness of putting wool on the map of the most valued fibres and by the way to refloat a lost industrie in a remote land.
If you do understand Spanish and you are interested; I would like to invite you to listen to the Podcast here. If you do not understand Spanish and you are still interested, please send me a line and I will make sure to send you a translated text.
