After collaborating for years at a distance, Adriana Marina and Mónica Sánchez Duarte met in person on January 10 to discuss plans for 2020 in Argentina as well as how to participate more actively in Argentina's ethical fashion movement. Mónica is a Colombian collaborator with the Latin American Forum for Ethical Fashion and was visiting Buenos Aires. The meeting aimed to highlight advances in sustainable fashion and discuss how to achieve a sustainable environment by forging alliances between professionals, businesses, and academics.
Mónica comes from the design world and has worked locally in the higher education field, heading up various fashion design programs and instilling in her students -- future designers -- a conscientiousness paired with the importance of designing clothing in a responsible manner. She has established development and design guidelines for her students' collections and is also guiding a group of advisers made up of professors who are helping to design the project.
Mónica was also in charge of the first Fashion Revolution Week in Colombia and as a representative of the forum above has participated in meetings and events centered around ethical fashion in Colombia, spreading the word about sustainable fashion and creating awareness of its importance. This interest led her to obtain a doctorate in education from the Independent University of Barcelona [Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona]. She graduated in November.
The short-term outcomes of the meeting between Adriana and Mónica are to disseminate information on the status of Colombian artisans and their products, establish a degree of commitment to sustainable fashion by local businesses, identify any organizations that support these types of initiatives, and establish possible alliances to create education around the topics suggested by HxN. We're confident that these projects will help to grow our team in the southern cone of South America.
