Alpaca Sweaters Woven in La Paz
LEAD: In a courtyard near El Prado, the main thoroughfare of La Paz, Bolivia, Isabel Mamani kneels on the floor as she grinds cochineal on a stone mortar, the kind of mortar used in most Bolivian homes to grind hot pepper, garlic and spices. Cochineal, an insect that feeds on cactus, is also the name of a dye produced from female cochineal; a spectrum of reds, from scarlet to rust, is the result, and the colors are used to dye a line of scarves, sweaters and shawls produced by Artesanias Millma.
In a courtyard near El Prado, the main thoroughfare of La Paz, Bolivia, Isabel Mamani kneels on the floor as she grinds cochineal on a stone mortar, the kind of mortar used in most Bolivian homes to grind hot pepper, garlic and spices. Cochineal, an insect that feeds on cactus, is also the name of a dye produced from female cochineal; a spectrum of reds, from scarlet to rust, is the result, and the colors are used to dye a line of scarves, sweaters and shawls produced by Artesanias Millma.
The Millma workshop, at Calle 20 de Octubre 1824, is owned and run by Arthur Tracht and Laurie Adelson, husband and wife, and a new breed of artisans that is producing elegant alpaca woolens in Bolivia.
La Paz, a city of one million, is surrounded by snow-covered peaks, jagged rock and dirt formations and flatlands that harbor alpacas, llamas and vicunas. Most of the 200,000 alpacas in existence are raised in the Peruvian and Bolivian flatlands and hills that surround Lake Titicaca.
Alpaca wool has a long and very fine fiber with a natural crimp that, when spun and woven, produces a soft, warm product. Baby alpaca wool is considered almost as soft and silky as cashmere - and it is nearly as expensive.
Miss Adelson and Mr. Tracht are producing garments with designs that incorporate traditional Aymara and Quechua Indian motifs and techniques as well as modern styles and colors. One sweater, designed by Mr. Tracht, is based on pre-Columbian Tiwanacu textile designs that could pass as the work of a modern-day designer. And one of their most popular items is a full-length knitted dress of alpaca, with green zigzags against a background of regal purple, and a soft cowl neck. Another beautiful item is a shawl with a combination of naturally dyed pink, gray, blue and red wools.
Millma sweaters are characterized by bold colors in traditional textile patterns including Andean, pre-Columbian, Italian needlepoint, Indonesian ikats and Native American designs. Abstract patterns are also featured. Colors range from bright reds, pinks, turquoise, blues and black in the women's models to more subdued colors in the men's designs. The sweaters have as many as 12 colors in a model. Some sweaters show subtle color and hue changes; others demonstrate bold contrasting colors. This fall, Millma has a women's line of loose-fitting tops with color-coordinated mini skirts or long, tube skirts.
Laurie Adelson, a native of Chicago, arrived in Bolivia in 1976 to do research on highland Bolivian weaving traditions for the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Museum. Later she was co-author of ''The Weaving Traditions of Highland Bolivia''; in 1978 she started collecting and exporting weavings from Bolivia to United States galleries, private collectors and museums.
Arthur Tracht, a cartography and Latin American studies major from Temple University, went to Bolivia in 1977 to collect and export Bolivian weavings. He has lived in Bolivia since then.
Their paths crossed, and they began traveling by truck or bus throughout the Bolivian Andes, learning from Aymara and Quechua Indians the ancient arts of spinning, dyeing and weaving. Their research took the form of a book (''Aymara Weavings: Ceremonial Textiles of Colonial 19th-Century Bolivia'') that was published in 1985 in conjunction with a Smithsonian exhibit they organized. In 1983 they bought a shop in the basement of the Hotel Plaza in downtown La Paz.
The shelves of this shop are lined with displays of the latest alpaca wear, Quechua and Aymara Indian weavings and wall hangings with abstract pre-Columbian designs. Their new line includes men's round-necked sweaters, $50 each, with coca brown or blue and black patterns. Also for sale are naturally dyed men's scarves and alpaca ties. A woman's alpaca sweater with abstract flower, bird and geometric designs colored with natural indigo and cochineal on a white background sells for $60. Another sweater is called the Milky Way and has a constellation of points and circles in shades of gray and white.
Full-length dresses, $80 each, show bright colors ranging from reds, pinks, turquoise, blues and blacks, either with simple stripes or intricate geometric forms patterned on Andean pre-Columbian textiles. Also available are loomed belts made and used by Bolivian highland Indians and sets of alpaca children's sweaters, scarves and mittens that sell for $35.
To stock the store in the Hotel Plaza and another one they opened at Calle Sagarnaga 225 in La Paz, Miss Adelson and Mr. Tracht had to produce their own line of woolens. ''We started working with women who handknit at home,'' said Miss Adelson. ''The problem was that we had no control over quality, so we soon decided to set up our own looms.'' They also started getting wholesale orders from the United States but could not meet demand without their own production. They began the factory in 1984 with five women employees who had no previous weaving training.
''We realized that because of the high cost of alpaca wool we needed a product for the upper-scale market, and to produce such a product, a top designer,'' said Mr. Tracht.
They made a contract with Jane Everett, an independent New York-based designer who has worked for top designers. She flies in twice a year to produce an alpaca and pima cotton line, and she advises them on the color and design trends for the coming year.
Mr. Tracht and Miss Adelson started in 1984 with an annual production of 500 sweaters. Starting a business in Bolivia in 1984 when inflation was running at 10,000 percent was not easy. Salaries and prices for wool and other supplies had to be readjusted weekly. Numerous transport strikes often forced workers to walk an hour or two to work from their homes in the outskirts of the city. By 1985, inflation had reached 20,000 percent, shortages were widespread and a regular supply of wool virtually impossible. With Bolivia unable to produce enough wool to satisfy demand, Mr. Tracht must go to Peru to purchase wool.
Today, despite a production of 7,000 hand-knit and hand-loomed sweaters and an equal number of woven goods, they can't keep up with demand. Last year, they introduced a line of hand-loomed pima cotton sweaters for the North American spring and summer markets. Their workshop, which occupies an entire floor of an adobe house, has already become too small for the 55 employees who produce cotton and alpaca sweaters on knitting machines; shawls, scarfs and loomed textiles are made on wooden looms imported from the United States.
Millma is one of several alpaca shops that have opened their doors in La Paz recently to provide designer-quality knitwear. The shift has been away from sweaters, dresses and shawls with llama designs made from wool in shades of brown, gray and white to brighter, colorful pieces designed with fashion-conscious clients in mind. WHERE TO FIND WOOLLY SWEATERS La Paz
There are many stores in La Paz that sell alpaca garments. Sweaters in adult sizes generally cost $40 and up (prices are about half as much as in the United States). Garments in the following shops are designer quality.
Artesanias Millma (workshop at Calle 20 de Octubre 1824; telephone 35-02-55 or 32-20-57) has stores in the Hotel Plaza (Avenida El Prado; 32-18-31) and at Calle Sagarnaga 225 (35-89-25). Prices in the workshop and stores are the same.
La Lana in the Hotel Sheraton (Avenida Arce; workshop telephone 31-18-13 or 31-26-28) is owned by an American, William Siegal (560 Harrison Avenue, Boston, Mass. 02118; 617-482-3693), who is also a wholesale merchant in the United States.
Urdimbre (Edificio Petrolero, Avenida El Prado; no telephone) also carries a line of cotton-knit sweaters.
Adam (Avenida 6 de Agosto 2135; 32-05-15) is a cooperative (supported by the Agency for International Development) of people who make alpaca garments at home. Elsewhere
Peruvian Connection (Canaan Farm, Tonganoxie, Kan. 66086; 913-845-2450 or 800-255-6429) is a mail-order company that carries Millma sweaters in the United States, where they cost $150 to $190.
Pavo Real (89 South Street, Pier 17; New York, N.Y. 10038; 212-233-3722) carries a variety of Millma's sweaters, skirts and full-length dresses in its shops in Boston, Chicago and Washington as well as in New York. Skirts run about $50 to $100, full-length dresses about $150 to $200. - P. McF.
Correction Appended
LA PAZ, Bolivia, May 22 - The struggle over globalization and who controls natural resources is being waged across Latin America, but the battle lines are no sharper anywhere than here in Bolivia, where a potent confederation of protesters plans a march on Monday to demand more state control of energy resources.
Political analysts say the march - combined with a work stoppage and an Indian-style town hall meeting in a La Paz plaza - could further weaken the already debilitated government of President Carlos Mesa. It was just such a protest over energy policy that forced President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada from office in October 2003.
Now, with Mr. Mesa politically incapacitated and Congress thoroughly discredited because it is seen as corrupt, protesters have become emboldened, with some calling for the outright expropriation of private gas installations operated by such energy giants as British Gas, Repsol-YPF of Spain and Petrobras of Brazil.
Such demands have been gathering force, and they underscore the increasingly deep divisions in this Andean country, which despite its isolation has been at the forefront of a powerful backlash against market overhaul in Latin America.
"I think it's the most polarized the country has been in a long time," said Jim Shultz, director of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, which studies the effects of globalization on Bolivia. "In October 2003, the issue was more volatile, but it was more volatile because it was basically everybody against the government. This isn't everybody against the government. This is a situation where Bolivia is split three or four different ways."
On one side, there are Bolivians like Carlos Alberto López, a former vice minister of energy who was educated at Harvard and the London School of Economics.
Mr. López, now a consultant for energy companies, contends that nationalizing the oil industry would be a disaster for the country. He said Bolivia should instead be taking advantage of the fact that it has Latin America's second largest gas reserves by attracting foreign investors with favorable terms and then selling the gas to energy-hungry giants like Brazil or the United States.
"This was our last best hope for Bolivia's economy to grow," Mr. López, 45, said in an interview.
Across this capital, in a small office decorated with posters of the revolutionary icon Che Guevara, another protagonist expresses a sharply opposed viewpoint.
"The people have a right to nationalize and expropriate," said Jaime Solares, 53, who started working at age 13, has a 10th grade education and heads the Bolivian Workers Central, the country's largest labor confederation. "The people no longer believe in neo-liberalism."
The movement against market reforms appears to be gaining ground.
Last week, Bolivia's Congress, under pressure from protesters, signed into law a new tax-and-royalty scheme so tough that energy experts say oil and gas multinationals will curtail investments.
But groups like Mr. Solares's, with hundreds of thousands of members, say the law is too soft and want more restrictions. At the same time, a conservative, pro-globalization movement in the relatively prosperous eastern part of Bolivia is calling for a referendum on whether the region should have more autonomy, including control of its gas fields.
Political analysts say the divisive crisis could lead to violence or, in time, the disintegration of a country whose state has little presence or control over its far-flung provinces.
The discovery of large gas deposits in the late 1990's was supposed to have brought Bolivia more stability and wealth as the country's leaders tried to position Bolivia as a regional energy power.
But the masses of poor indigenous people have never forgotten how the Spanish and a series of corrupt governments plundered the country's silver, tin and gold, leaving them more poverty-stricken than before. Flexing their political muscle, they have carried out protests that resulted in the departure of two foreign water companies and wreaked havoc with the government's energy plans.
"Those companies always come in with big promises, but all they do is rob," said Rafael Condori, 18, an Aymara Indian who plans to take part in the protest on Monday.
Such words could not be more troubling to Juan Carlos Iturri, an economist who said that many protesters are driven by slogans and do not take into account Bolivia's economic realities.
"Nationalization is not real and it cannot be sustained in time," he said. "They want a horse and a battle and nothing sounds better than saying, 'Die, transnationals.' "
But Bolivia's history seems to signal that the protests are not likely to fade away. A major revolution in 1952 led to nationalization of the largest tin mines, and charismatic leaders have revived the movement in recent years.
Eduardo Gamarra, the Bolivian-born director of Latin American studies at Florida International University in Miami, referred to that history, saying in an interview, "Bolivia is one of the few places in the world where you have a firm belief that nationalizing key industries is the way to go."
posted by mrlewishistoricalsociety @ 7:56 PM
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Thank you very much! This helps a lot!
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