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Photo: Courtesy of Öhlin/D1/7Sinéad Lawlor and I travel to Lima about four times a year to work with our knitwear factories. On this trip, we took a few days to visit Arequipa, which is the closest city to the alpaca farms in the highlands. We visited the headquarters of one of our alpaca yarn suppliers and met some of the adorable alpacas. It was incredible to see the relationship between the alpacas and their caretakers—every animal had a name, and the caretakers’ affection for them gave the impression that these are not just livestock or a means to an end but members of their family.
Photo: Courtesy of Öhlin/D2/7We love working with alpaca fiber. Unlike its counterpart, cashmere, which is an environmentally catastrophic fiber, alpaca has a very, very low impact. As cashmere has trickled into the mainstream market, overgrazing and overbreeding have contributed to the earth’s climate change, and Mongolia is turning into an icy desert due to the overpopulation and grazing of cashmere goats. Cashmere goats graze very close to the grass root systems, which destroys fields that cannot be regrown. They also have very sharp hooves that destroy the terrain. Alpaca, on the other hand, don’t graze too close to the root, and their hooves tread lightly, so the grasslands can grow back every year and resupply the herds with new food. An alpaca even drinks less water than a goat and can grow enough wool for four or five sweaters in a year. It takes that much time for four individual cashmere goats to produce that amount of yarn.
Photo: Courtesy of Öhlin/D3/7No alpacas were harmed while harvesting their fibers! Above is some beautifully dyed alpaca yarn at the end of the harvesting process.
Photo: Courtesy of Öhlin/D4/7In Arequipa, we took a break to visit the incredible Santa Catalina Monastery. It’s like a city of its own. This giant, very old but preserved monastery is surrounded by walls in the center of Arequipa. You don’t have to be religious to admire the beauty, history, and architecture here. It was visually one of the most incredible things we saw on this trip—so many beautiful colors, gardens, fountains, and roads to discover in this strange time capsule of a place.
Photo: Courtesy of Öhlin/D5/7This is the fruit and juice area in the amazing and chaotic Mercado San Camilo in Arequipa. There are rows of fresh fruit, and the juicers make the best tropical fruit drinks we’ve ever had. The rest of the market is worth checking out, too, including a section of spooky Peruvian witch doctors. We spent all of our money here . . . .
Photo: Courtesy of Öhlin/D6/7Walking around the town of Arequipa is incredible—so many colors and flowers and beautiful little buildings. This is a photo of a friend we made at Perú Moda, a huge fashion exposition in Lima where small knitwear designers and Peruvian manufacturers can get face time with the global fashion community. Lee Dekel, pictured above, also works closely with sustainable manufacturing and textile design.
Photo: Courtesy of Öhlin/D7/7We also visited the incredible MALI Museum of Art in the midst of chaotic downtown Lima. This giant colonial building now houses an incredible museum of Peruvian, Central American, and South American art. Much of the artwork exposes the evils, darkness, and complications at the root of the colonization that built the museum’s walls. It’s also surrounded by a beautiful park with other small, intricate, old colonial buildings.
