Leticia Garcia: The Visionary Behind Sustainable Fashion Brand LEKUIN
Antakly Projects · The Conversation
LEKUIN
Leticia Garcia
The Mexican model turned designer on zero-waste couture, rescued fabric, and dressing women in whatever they please
Mexico City · San Miguel de Allende · Los Angeles
Why this conversation
Leticia Garcia and I came up in the same world, the one that runs on Italian Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and the click of a runway, and I have always been drawn to the people who walk away from it to make something of their own. She started modelling at fifteen, left Mexico City for the shows of Versace and Armani and Lacroix, and could have stayed inside that life as long as she liked. Instead she went looking for the fabric nobody else wanted.
LEKUIN is what she found. Every piece is handmade, one of a kind, built from materials she rescues wherever she can and deconstructs into garments you can wear three or four different ways. For an audience like mine that already matters, the consciousness of it, the refusal of waste. But what I love is that the sustainability is never the whole pitch. The clothes are simply beautiful, strange and architectural and a little bit Mexican, and they happen to be kind to the world by design rather than as an apology.
Everything, to me, is about recycling. It is a commitment, to myself and to my surroundings.Leticia Garcia
From the runway to the rescued fabric
She was fifteen when she left Mexico City for the international circuit, walking for Versace, Giorgio Armani, Custo Barcelona, and Louis Verdad, and shooting editorials with Deborah Turberville and Joyce Tenneson, who placed her in the book Surface Tension and, one Mother’s Day, in the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue. But the love was always for the cloth itself. Back in Mexico she made a first line of T-shirts out of recycled fabric, and the response was immediate. Buyers and shop owners came after her, she says, and the whole thing went from zero to a hundred almost overnight. At nineteen she moved to San Miguel de Allende, produced a fashion festival called Moda Fest, launched a first collection as Lekuin Couture, and never looked back.
The Charro Pants
Take the Charro Pants. The charro is Mexico’s horseman, and the traditional women’s version of that costume is a long skirt. Leticia took the man’s trousers instead and cut them to a woman’s body, embroidered down the side, a quiet argument made in cloth: that a woman can wear whatever she likes, whatever history decided she should or should not.
The Conversation
Tell me about LEKUIN.
My name is Leticia Garcia and I am the creator and designer of LEKUIN. The concept is very organic. Everything is one hundred percent handmade, from fabrics I basically rescue from all over, because for me it all comes down to recycling. Most of the pieces are one of a kind, with a deconstructed style, and you can wear a single piece in many different ways, so with the right styling it is almost like wearing a completely different outfit. The line keeps a very high end personality, and it is made for people who understand the art that goes into every single piece.
What inspires you?
Everything. Music, art, people, different cultures, colours, textures. Right now I am completely into recycling, which is really a commitment, to myself and to my surroundings, a matter of consciousness. The collection is one hundred percent handmade from rescued fabric, organic and industrial at the same time. The newest pieces are hand painted by my husband, who is an amazing artist, and woven in this very particular deconstructed style.
The artists and designers who move you?
Giuseppe Tornatore in cinema, Mario Benedetti in literature, The Knife in music. Everything about them is electricity and passion. In fashion, the eclectic, dramatic Alexander McQueen, the architectural and utterly avant-garde Yohji Yamamoto, and my dear friend Louis Verdad, whose work holds something remarkably masculine and feminine at once, always tres chic, and always with the perfect, comfortable fit.
Where do you go to find things?
Maxfield in LA, a very high end store with a fearless eye, where everything is breathtaking. A little vintage place called Flashbacks in Encinitas, because I am obsessed and always find something there. Zara on the Gran Via in Madrid, Anthropologie and Intermix in New York. Mood Fabrics, where I can lose hours. And right now Planet Blue, I love the whole concept, and they carry LEKUIN, so they are at the very top of my list.
What does fashion mean to you?
Fashion happens everywhere now. It is about style and personality. A big show is like a great concert, a luxury, but the real thing happens right in front of us, on the street, in where you are and how you feel. It is the talent of so many people reflected in daily life.
What is next for LEKUIN?
I have just moved to the States, so I want to open new doors, get more exposure, place LEKUIN in a few stores I have my eye on, and keep having fun so I can keep moving forward.
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