Lørdag & Søndag
What is your brand's philosophy?
Working hand to hand with families of artisans from all over Mexico, to create useful design pieces at affordable prices.
Where do you get inspiration?
Mostly traveling around Mexico, meeting new artisans and their techniques. Mexico wasn't as "closed" as other countries during the lock down, so these past years have been a perfect time to experimente and collaborate with new families of artisans. We actually created a lot of samples during the pandemic, which kept the income flowing to the people we work with.
Having said all that, a good instagram/pinterest dip, is also a great source of inspiration. There are so many great talented people around the world, producing amazing work.
Lately I'm working on 3 different collabs with younger designers, I love to mix my knowledge of the industry with their skills, which works perfectly :)
Tell us about yourself and your team!
Thus far we are all Mexicans in the team. In the office/showroom it's me (Salvador, head designer) and two women (Karina and Belen) in their mid twenties that help with admin work and logistics.
In Oaxaca we work with one woman, Celeste who is in charge of visiting artisans, bringing them money and shipping things to us. Lately we have been working a lot with this family of wicker (its not quite wicker but similar fiber) weavers and they live up in a mountain with no phone coverage, cell phone signal or banks. So, Celeste's help with all those things is super appreciated.
Our office is super chill, the team is not obliged to come 9-5 monday-friday; we pretty much work from home when it's needed and go to the showroom when it's needed. Also, as the head of the office, I'm not counting hours and the girls can take time off or go on holidays whenever they want, as long as we get all our tasks/work done. Before the pandemic we had a rule that Fridays we would never go to the office, it would be home-office.
Besides our close team from the showroom, we work with about 6-10 families of artisans from all over Mexico.
Where are your products designed?
All our pieces are Designed and Hand-made in Mexico.
What materials do you use? Where are your raw materials made?
We mainly work with natural fibers (jipijapa fiber, Gnoo fiber, teak wood, palm fiber, cotton, etc) and these are materials that our Artisans harvest themself or buy from local suppliers
Where are your final products made?
Almost all our final pieces involve two families of artisans from different regions. So we might get for example, the wooden part to a fan is made in the southern state of Campeche and then we ship that piece to Oaxaca for another family to weave the top part of the fan.
Then they ship it to us (Mexico city) to our showroom where we add labels, dust-covers and any extra.
What certifications do you have, if any?
We don't have certificates. As a Mexican brand, we have always thought that spending so much money on certifications is a bit of a waste of Money. We prefer to invest that money in production, that ill get direct money to our artisans instead of giving it to a big corporation for validation. So far we don't have plans for certifications. Our main rule is to let the Artisans set the prices of whatever they make without negotiation.
What are you most proud of as a brand?
Little story. We designed a circular fan about 7 years ago and now all the artisans from Campeche State have copied and produced this fan. In the beginning I was very stressed about it but later I realized that this was my actual contribution to my State's traditional folk design (Im also from the State of Campeche). So now I just get happy whenever I see that our design is embedded in the culture. I even saw a replica of our far in one trip to Colombia last year, its international now :)
What is your vision for the fashion/homeware/art industry in the future?
It seems like clients are starting to be more aware of what they purchase and the story behind these products. I hope we continue moving into a less fast/cheap-production society and focus more on hand-made and how our consumption affects our world and our people.