Sustainability
SOCIAL AND SUSTAINABLE AWARENESS
Our MAZ work team is made up of more than 60 people, of which 80% are householder women, among indigenous artisans and artisans belonging to 4 regions of Colombia. By working with female householders, indigenous ethnic groups and other vulnerable communities, MAZ produces unique garments with a high content of co-creation. This contributes to the development of communities and generates a positive social and economic impact.
We are a “slow-fashion” brand and our purpose is to establish an emotional connection with the client through each piece, the traceability of its history, and the hands that create it. We seek that both, our work team and the client himself, can have an honest and transparent experience when it comes to producing and consuming fashion respectively.
Sustainability
We are a slow and sustainable fashion brand, 90% of our pieces are made by artisan hands or have manual interventions. Our purpose is to support vulnerable human groups, to help them grow, develop, and to be a platform to show their culture and talent to the world. With each piece, we make the conscious decision to make few units only on request. We make sure to provide our artisans and production teams with stable and sustainable work without overproducing. We manage a limited fabric inventory, controlling the excessive purchase of raw materials. We use high quality processes and materials, and once the production is done, we use the left pieces to create new garments, controlling and avoiding contamination.
Textiles
We are lovers of textile exploration. We love creating original materials through the production of our own textiles, looms, knits and embroidery. The timelessness of our silhouettes, the original textile bases, and the artisanal elaborations, make each garment a treasure piece, different and unique. The mixture between the cultural richness as inspiration, the talent and experience of our artisans, and the contemporary nature of our brand concept, generates a powerful fusion between universal sophistication and the wisdom of cultures.
UPCYCLED MATERIALS AND GARMENTS
With the aim of increasing sustainable practices, we seek to reduce as much as possible the waste of our fabrics, as well as the excess inventory of garments. We ensure that each valuable textile waste and piece can have a new life, so we can reduce the environmental impact and generate a more complete and responsible cycle.
PRESERVATION OF ANCESTRAL ROOTS
Thanks to the approach and work that we have developed with artisan communities since 2013 (manual weaving, embroidery, horizontal loom) and indigenous communities since 2018 (“Guanga” vertical loom weaving, weaving in Chaquiras in Choco, Putumayo and Nariño), our creative director found a connection with her essence and her own identity. As a Colombian with mixed roots and universal multicultural curiosity, the tools of expression and creation present in the different native artisan cultures, start from an understanding of the world through symbols and rituals. The creative cultural tools that exalt the cosmogony, are immediately connected with the pillars of conceptual development of the brand, nurturing with each collection.
Made up of 31 artisans from the Cametsá Biyá indigenous community. Their home is in Sibundoy Valley, Putumayo a small town where beauty, nature, and the mysticism of ancestral cultures makes it unique. Technique: CHUMBE handcraft, made on ‘Guanga’ vertical loom. "Iluminada es quien regresa a sus raíces” in Spanish, meaning “Enlightened is the one that returns to her roots” is the poem created by this artisan group in collaboration with our creative director, in which our pieces are intervened with these artisanal developments. Their symbolism, their poetry, their cosmogony, everything they weave, everything! It has a reason for being, it is living poetry! They represent their culture and their life through what they capture in their tissues.
Made up of 24 artisans from Los Pastos indigenous community. Their home is located in the Municipality of Cuaspud, Nariño. Technique: Guanga vertical loom. Hajsu is born with the initiative of rescuing the Guanga loom as a work alternative for artisan indigenous women and their families. It is endorsed by the traditional authority Cabildo of Carlosama which is based in their traditional values and principles. In their textiles they capture the ethnic symbology, the flames of the fire and the phases of the moon. They extract their vivid colors from the different native plants and from the elements of Mother Nature.
Made up of 12 artisans from the Community of Camëtsá Biyá, their home is located in Mocóa, the capital of Putumayo. Technique: Beads embroidery, using different techniques on freehand weaving, and Guanga weaving. Alpamama is an artisan indigenous group, conformed of two indigenous communities: Inga and Camëntsá. Their work is based on cultural strengthening, and the rescue of the cultural practices of artisanal developments and their native language. They give the community the sense of unity and collective group work, comprehension and dialogue. It is working with a community benefit, rather than a personal one. For them, to live as a community, means to live in harmony and they reach this through spirituality, and the advice of their ancestors.
Made up of 100 artisans from the Wounaan Phuur from Quibdó indigenous community. This community migrated from their ancestral territories in San Juan River due to the armed conflict to Chocó, the capital of Quibdó. Technique: Elaborations in beads.The importance and commitment of their culture, involves teaching, and the dissemination of knowledge around the making of their textiles. One of their famous elaboration in beads, is the Rombo Embera, which is one of the artisan interventions made in our pieces. Wounaan and Embera, are the two most representative towns in the Chocó region.
