The Alpargata Pattern
Two pieces we keep going back to: the alpargata and the faja. Every year we pull something different out of them — a colourway, a motif, a bit of playfulness — and knit it into a new archive. Not a one-time reference. This is the series so far.
Not A Mood Board
Allison Grew Up Around These
Allison grew up in Ecuador, and alpargatas were everywhere. Market stalls, festival days, a kid's feet at a Pase del Niño procession. Rope soles, a woven panel of pattern across the front, colour built up in bands instead of printed on top. Nobody called it design. It was just what people wore.
Every region does it a little differently — tight diamond checks here, wider stripe-and-dot bands there, even embroidered florals on the velvet ones worn for Pase del Niño in Azuay. That range is exactly what keeps this interesting to come back to.
Alpargatas, Otavalo, Imbabura. Fibra vegetal y textil. Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
The Faja Is The Other Half
The faja is a long woven belt, worn the same way generation after generation. No alpargata pattern, but its own strong logic: bands of saturated colour, small repeating diamonds, plain undyed thread doing the quiet work in between.
Between the two of them — the alpargata and the faja — there's more colour and pattern logic than we've come close to using up. That's why this isn't a one-season idea. We're still working through what's in these two pieces, one archive at a time.
Faja, Otavalo, Imbabura. Tejido plano artesanal. Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
From The Archive, Not A Search Engine
Fibra vegetal y textil.
Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
Tejido plano.
Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
Tejido plano.
Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
Tejido plano artesanal.
Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
Tejido bordado y apliques.
Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
Azuay. Tejido bordado y apliques.
Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo.
All six pieces above are held in the Reserva de Etnografía, Museo Pumapungo, and catalogued in "Textiles del Ecuador: Memoria y presente del tejido" (María del Carmen Trelles Muñoz et al., Universidad del Azuay Casa Editora / Museo Pumapungo / CIDAP / Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio del Ecuador, 2022, ISBN 978-9942-618-04-7). Photography by Edgar Reyes.
The First Ones
The first variation pulled from these two pieces. Two colourways, same hand-knit construction: the pattern worked directly into the fabric, not added after.
The Alpargata Pattern
Not live yet, so consider this a first look. Same pattern, two garments, two colourways: a pullover, made in this cut for the first time, and the sweater, continuing on.
Both share the same diagonal-stripe-and-chevron pattern: teal, navy, ecru, burgundy, and camel, in the same bands-and-diamonds logic as the alpargatas and faja above. The pullover leans teal, the sweater leans burgundy.
Every Piece Reflects The Hands That Made It
Nothing here is added after or printed on. Each pattern is knit directly into the fabric by hand, in small batches, so the piece in front of you reflects the specific person who made it, not a production line.
The pattern will look different next year. Where it comes from won't.
— The UTKU TeamKeep reading: The Bolívar Knitters, the hands behind every pattern · Baby Alpaca, the fibre it's knit from · back to Heritage
