Fashion Designer Carla Fernández

3rd November 2023

Carla Fernández is a Mexico City based fashion designer who creates new clothes inspired by traditional, indigenous garments of Latin America. Her work is a revolutionary approach to fashion and is absolutely breathtaking. Carla joins us on Bullseye to talk about her “Manifesto de moda Mexicana,” thrift shopping and so much more.

Episode notes

(Photo: Galerie 19M / Elea Jeanne-Schmitter)

Carla Fernández is a Mexico City based fashion designer who creates new clothes inspired by traditional, indigenous garments. 

Huipils are one such outfit. They are ubiquitous in much of Mexico and Central America.  It’s a sort of blouse. Sometimes as long as a dress. Imagine it flat on a table – it’s long and rectangular, with a hole in the middle. The hole’s for your head, and the sides flap down on your front and back. 

Rebozos are another clothing she designs – they are wrapped around your body, worn almost like a shawl. You can even carry a baby with it. 

These forms are native to Latin America and often central to identity. Often they’re intensely regionally specific – generations of weavers in one small town making one very specific style. Carla grew up surrounded by these forms.

The Museo Franz Meyer in Mexico City recently had her work on display.  To design the clothes for the exhibit, Carla brought a mobile design laboratory to the homes of traditional masters. Weavers who made rebozos and huipils. Embroiderers who make the incredible black-and-white suits that charo horseback riders wear. The people who carve the wooden muddles used to make hot chocolate.

Her work is a revolutionary approach to fashion and is absolutely breathtaking. Carla joins us on Bullseye to talk about her “Manifesto de moda Mexicana,” thrift shopping and so much more. 

Currently, Carla’s work is on display in Paris at la Galerie du 19M, the show is called “Carla Fernández. L’avenir fait main.” She’s also participating in the exhibit of “Inventing Isabella” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. To see more pictures and buy Carla’s clothes click here.

In this episode...

Senior Producer
Producer
Maximum Fun Producer
Maximum Fun Production Fellow

Guests

  • Carla Fernández

About the show

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney’s, which called it “the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world.” Since April 2013, the show has been distributed by NPR.

If you would like to pitch a guest for Bullseye, please CLICK HERE. You can also follow Bullseye on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. For more about Bullseye and to see a list of stations that carry it, please click here.

Get in touch with the show

People

Senior Producer

Producer

Maximum Fun Producer

Maximum Fun Production Fellow

How to listen

Stream or download episodes directly from our website, or listen via your favorite podcatcher!

Share this show

New? Start here...

Liked Fashion Designer Carla Fernández? Listen to these next...