VELÁSQUEZ

ABSTRACT 

As a brand, Velásquez is on the incessant path to reclaiming and defending personal space. This collection uses visual and cultural reference points of Marmato, the Colombian town where the designer was raised, to celebrate the mining culture of the working class through design, challenging imperialist systems and confronting cultural stereotypes. 

A journey through the complex history of Marmato, a gold-mining town in the north-west of Colombia, and its struggle against modern colonialism. A city characterised by its own multicultural composition, a place inhabited by indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant communities, farmers, traditional miners and foreigners, all of whom have built a magical place around the precious metal, with myths and stories of witches, witchcraft and spells. 

With the cultural heritage and childhood memories in Colombia, this collection strives to show the designer’s past, fantasising with a different upbringing in which the disappearance of a patriarchal, sexist and homophobic society would have had a very different, positive impact on the outcasts of a generation. 

CONCEPT 

BAREQUERO, noun 

This word refers to the workers involved in small-scale gold mining. They often work independently or in small groups, digging gold from mines using traditional tools and methods. Dusty, lustreless and cracked buildings characterise the unpaved streets of Marmato. 

Gold symbolises all that is superior and divine, a treasure that is hard to find and which gives meaning to long, exhausting days of work in a mine, coexisting with mercury, the lack of air, darkness and heat. Here, the body is a mere tool that is used to fulfil the dreams of settlers from other continents. But just like every dream, objects disappear in an instant, gold and money vanish into thin air, and only dust remains. 

Gold has its own agenda, it arrives at its own pace and, as a miner, you must have the patience to find the precious metal. You won’t find it when you want to, only when the mountain wants you to. You’ll learn to wait, and there will be days when you’ll find nothing and then, suddenly, when the heat is unbearable, you’ll set your eyes on the shiny stones.