A few months ago I received a piece of news that was “one of mine”. I read it and if there was one thing that got me hooked it was, without a doubt, the ingenuity and creativity of the protagonists. It was not the first time I had seen this idea, but I liked both its origin and the way Ana Cañil explained it.
Would you like to meet entrepreneur women who have combined tradition, effort, work, and fashion? I encourage you to read on.
“Tied up like her colleagues, but with a loom in front of her, Oana works with the same intensity… embroidering the nets… which they will transform into bags with quality, handmade, artisan, and well-designed fabrics; or into bags that could be designed by an Italian workshop – from posh Milan… But they are from here, authentic.” (Ana Cañil)
Of course, they do, I said to myself when I read this paragraph because I am sure that our protagonists have nothing to envy to the “posh workshop” (with all due respect) that Ana talks about in her article.
But let’s go to the beginning of the story, a story that began many, many, years ago, a story of women from San Vicente de la Barquera, Cantabria, that:
- work with 3 basic elements: needles, scissors, and their own hands,
have turned a craft into an endangered art,- are committed to the environment,
- are proud of their hard work on the seine boat,
- (some) have had to learn from scratch,
- work with great intensity and effort (which is not reciprocated financially),
- are committed to an art that requires a great deal of skill and patience, and
- have undertaken thanks to a circular economy project.
The result of all this is the eco-design of products made by three women, Silvia, Oana, and Sandra, using the same ancestral sewing techniques used by the fisherwomen to repair the fishing nets when they arrive broken from the sea. All this, thanks to the Red_era project, aimed at the collective of rederas (those who knit fishing nets) of San Vicente de la Barquera, whose central axis is to provide women rederas with all the necessary resources and training to promote their professional diversification, and thus undertake a complementary activity to their main activity, as well as giving a second chance to the fishing nets that for various reasons are no longer used for fishing activity.
Here is an interview from SER, in case you want to hear them “first hand” and a news item from Antena 3.
If you are interested in contacting them, the best way to do it is through La Cofradía de Pescadores de San Vicente de la Barquera and Instagram. I’m already looking forward to carrying one of their bags, of course.
Have a good week.