Tag: Puerto

Auralís Herrero Lugo moved to Puerto Rico from New York City in January with a plan to rebuild the island’s ailing fashion industry. To characterize going back home after Hurricane María worsened a decade-long economic crisis as a big challenge would be an understatement—but she says those are a recurring theme in her life.

“I’m always the type of person [who is] never clear on what she’s doing, but does it anyway,” Herrero says. “People always tell me I’m crazy for wanting to come back, but I always say, ‘Why not’?”

This was actually Herrero’s third attempt to move back home, after building a fashion career in the mainland. The last time she tried to relocate, a few years ago, she was the head of a sustainable resort wear brand, Auralístudio. Her plan was to have the line be manufactured in Puerto Rico and sold in New York, but it didn’t pan out: Herrero realized local factories didn’t know how to work with designers the way she had experienced in Manhattan’s Garment District. “In New York, you take your designs and materials to the factory and have your orders back in two weeks,” she says. “In Puerto Rico, there wasn’t even a connection between designer and factory.”

Though you might not think of it as a fashion destination now, Puerto Rico has a history with clothing manufacturing, dating back to the early 20th century. By 1936, nearly 100,000 women worked as seamstresses for local factories, or led their own home delivery sewing businesses. Today, the factories that remain, according to Herrero, mostly produce large uniform orders, primarily for the military and local schools; major designers on the island, primarily based in the capital of San Juan, focus on bridal and special-occasion gowns.

That realization is what drove her third go: Herrero is the co-founder and director of Retazo, a fashion manufacturing and education platform created to bridge the gap between local designers and factories with sustainable practices in Puerto Rico. The name comes from the Spanish word for both a fabric scrap and a big challenge—fitting for this particular project.

Herrero explains that the lack of resources for the ready-to-wear market in the island has created a disconnect between designers and manufacturers. “There is a big hole there,” she says. “Puerto Rico has the talent and the vision but there is no manufacturing for [ready-to-wear] designers.”

A graduate of Moore College of Art and Design, Herrero worked at Susana Monaco and G-Star early in her career. At 25, she decided to quit her job as a creative director at an established brand and launch her own venture, Auralístudio. Throughout all of this, Herrero developed a passion for circular product development and design, a sustainable practice where pieces are made with longevity and responsible material sourcing in mind. (She’s taught courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons the New School for Design, both in New York, about this topic.)

Even as her career developed in New York, Herrero kept thinking of how her skills might translate to her native Puerto Rico, where she always envisioned moving to. So, in 2014, she created a PowerPoint presentation to develop a new project that would combine her experience both as a sustainable designer and as an educator. She visited factories on the island to see how she could create a platform that would bridge that gap between manufacturing and design. And she found three partners to help make Retazo a reality: Ruby Dávila, a fashion business specialist; Daniel Santiago, a fashion sales executive; and Ellen Christine Colón-Lugo, a New York-based milliner and educator.

In 2017, Retazo was established. It received a $5,000 grant from the Puerto Rican government that allowed Herrero to establish the company and its workshop space. With Hurricane María ravaging the island in September, though, the small team she had built decided to put Retazo on hold. “Looking at all of Puerto Rico’s problems is different when you are outside,” she says. “Once you are here, you’re swimming with everyone else and it’s scary to think about our future.” In early 2018, though, the company won another $20,000, this time from local startup accelerator Parallel18, as part of an initiative created to attract local entrepreneurs after the hurricane. Retazo officially launched to the public in July 2018.

Retazo supports factories by providing education and training programs to diversify their offerings and encourage ready-to-wear production. It then connects designers in and out of the island with local manufacturers, to bring that business back to Puerto Rico. Retazo has also partnered with the Sor Isolina Ferre Center, a community-focused non-profit on the island, to create two manufacturing labs—one in San Juan, and one in the southern town of Ponce—set to open in January 2019, which will focus on developing sustainable production practices.

Its initial goal was to attract at least 15 designers to be members by its official launch last month. At press time, the company has 41 clients (including Project Runway contestant Margarita Alvarez), dismissing skeptics on both sides who, as Herrero encountered, didn’t see the value of collaborating: “There was a lot of resistance from the factories at first because they didn’t see the value in working with small, local designers or producing smaller order,” she remembers.

Herrero says it was never her plan to leave Puerto Rico. “I think it’s been more difficult to come back than it was to leave at 18,” she says. She was determined, though—and that meant finding a full-time job (as a product development director at a factory in the central town of Corozal) that would allow her to focus on building Retazo without having to worry about finances. “I will continue to work full-time until Retazo can afford me,” she says. “So, for now, this helps.”

Still, Herrero’s devotion to Retazo and her homeland keep her afloat: She says her 45-minute morning commute from San Juan to the mountains of Corozal looks straight out of a postcard. “I can’t believe I get to do this job and to live home now,” she says.