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Crocheting A Landscape in Boyacá, Colombia
Eugenia Gongalez de Henn talks to Priah founder, Juanita Garcia, about what led her to create a brand that honors her heritage and how she is working to preserve and refine a traditional art.
‘Crochet’ is a word to which we all have a reaction, a feeling, an image in our mind. Despite the many associations we may give to the word, everyone can feel the pull and attachment to our past. Crocheting is an art that has been around for generations, it can be bold or extremely delicate, modern or perfectly traditional. Boyacá, a rural area in the Andean region of Colombia is where Priah is based; and here is where crocheting is taken to the highest level of luxury.
Juanita Garcia, the founder of Priah, was always focused on a career in social work, but somehow was always placing attention elsewhere rather than her home country, Colombia. After completing a masters in Social Entrepreneurship in London her mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and her father called for help. Juanita found herself back in Sogamoso, living with her parents and grandmother, and crocheting, day in, day out. It became a therapeutic tool for her mother to take her mind off the treatments. A moment for her grandmother to pass on her craft to Juanita and teach her that what she had dedicated her whole life. This process led her to realize the amount of knowledge that lived in these older women’s hands—a whole generation of crochet masters of Sogamoso without anyone to teach. Juanita had found her social work. Priah, became a vessel for the talent in these women’s hands to be passed on to younger apprentices, while keeping employed an older generation that would not find work elsewhere. She has taken years of research to perfect the fabrics and the fits to deliver a collection of the highest luxury, in a meaningful, sustainable way.
The Ruana, or ‘poncho as it is more commonly known, is Priah’s updated take on the everyday poncho. Juanita elongated it and opened the neck hole. It can be worn as a throw, belted as a dress, with jeans or over an evening gown. Its base is dead stock Loro Piana zibellino cashmere and the knit in the crochet is make out of cotton and homegrown Colombian silk from farmers in a neighboring region, with two different color tones. The crochet is woven with the second smallest needle available.It is a huge strain for the eye and hand to work with such minuscule stitches. Its tension varies depending on the artisan, creating their own signature. Therefore, every piece must be completed only by the hands which started it. There is a special crochet technique to make the relief, with the design inspired by the Tocarreña potato- one of 60 types of potatoes grown in the fields of Sogamoso. Priah has a constant dialogue between the land, the crops and the artisans. As Juanita says— “the farmers knit our landscape, and we crochet their crops”.
— OST, JANUARY 2022
THE PONCHO
LIMITED EDITION. AVAILABLE IN BLACK AND CAMEL. HANDMADE-TO-ORDER.
