The Mayan civilization was one of the most outstanding in America for its extensive development of art, writing, architecture, mathematics, astronomy and ecology. Of the native languages spoken in Mexico today, Mayan represents more than 10%, but despite its importance and the enormous legacy that they have left to the entire world, as is the case with many other native peoples, the descendants Mayans are not valued the way they should.
But the cultural wealth of these communities is being recovered by some world fashion figures, such as the French designer Christian Louboutin, who launched a collection called “Mexicaba” in which around 100 Mayan artisans participated.
What happens to this collection? What has happened is that, when the pay that the artisans received was known, while the bags are sold for 30 thousand Mexican pesos in the market, the controversy was unleashed.
The artisans from Santo Domingo, Maxcanú, Xohuayán, Oxkutzcab, from Canek, in Tekax, and from the municipality of Maní, worked for almost 3 months in traditional techniques such as the Mayan waist loom, embroidery, wood carving and horn carving.
The collection, assembled in Italy, also includes bags, shoes and accessories; Most of them have attached stones, and even have applications such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, dolls dressed in typical Mexican dress and colored birds. Each bag made is unique, since no type of mold was used.
The “glass half full”
The contact between the artisans and the designer was made through the intermediary of the Fundación Haciendas del Mundo Maya, an NGO that works with Mayan communities of the Yucatan Peninsula implementing economic and social development projects.
From there they see the joint work on the collection as part of a strategy to strengthen the skills and abilities of the inhabitants of the original communities and make their designs reach fashion products to continue promoting their cultural heritage.
The artisans, in this sense, expressed that they felt happy with the work: “The collaboration was a God-given, nor do we believe that we sew for Louboutin (…) We are very poor, thank God we are working. This collaboration promoted because we came out on the Internet,” said one of them.
The “half empty glass”
According to data from the 2015 Intercensal Survey, in Mexico indigenous people work mainly as employees or workers (37.7%), self-employed workers (28.7%) and in farm work, as day laborers or laborers (11.5%). In the case of women, 32% work on their own; and, in total, 15 out of 100 indigenous language speakers are unpaid workers, compared to 2 out of 100 non-indigenous language speakers.
In this case, these figures are expressed in the artisans’ need for work. For each bag they received a payment of 237 pesos (about 13 dollars), but in the market each piece is sold for about 30 thousand Mexican pesos (1,652 dollars).
As noted, they will receive 10% of the profits from each item sold in Christian Loboutin boutiques.
Does this seem fair to you? Should they earn more? Do they spread their culture or take advantage of cheap labor? What do you think?