Costaiia dresses: cottagecore with an Oaxacan spirit

Ah!The pleasure of running with an interesting brand that is doing your own on Instagram.Without copying from anyone, with a rich imaginary, responsible practices, flexible sizes that make the purchase at a simple distance, and a good tote!Is there anything like it?Find a ticket with Benjamin Franklin's face in an old bag, suddenly?At least, the Vortex felt in which I fell the first time I met Costaiia, the brand of the Venezuelan Patricia Pietri, 23, made in Mexico, made in the capital, with special collaborations with artisans from Oaxaca, Michoacán andthe state of Mexico.

His formation in liberal arts and cinema, his fascination with crafts, for the performing arts: theater, ballet, opera, circus, and a clan of friends with -amuy- good taste are some of the factors that makeThis Vortex one so addictive and vertiginous.

Although the dresses of Costaiia seem the intellectual cousins, those who studied anthropology, of the nap dresses that viralized in the pandemia, Pietri assures that Costaiia, more than a brand, is a research project on culture, art and design.Of the things that a daughter of the Venezuelan diaspora can do in a country as rich as Mexico.

Do not call her a brand, Pietri suggests me, by Zoom the first time we talked, but just commission her team to take another circulation of dresses from the last collection, because those she intended to sell in the summer sold out before she arrivedThe second half of July.Do not call it a brand, but in addition to dresses made with cotton, which could easily fit in the cottagecore category, it has wide pants, short shorts and unisex shirts of extra large necks.Don't call her a brand, but Devendra already has a couple of things from Costaiiia at home.Yes, that unvendra (Banhart).

"It is a space for contemplation and collaboration rather than a trade," says Pietri."It is a field where the traditional intertwined with the contemporary and I share pieces of a culture through design".

On the circus, the leitmotif of Costaiia, Pietri tells that it comes from a very genuine place, "I love loqueras since Chiquita".But to say that Costaiia is limited to the child circus iconography, to Dumbo -although Dumbo things have things?Creative friends, photographers, stylists and art directors, who for any trip they take together and take photos that then feed my obsession with their imaginary.

His universe has some of the sets and uniforms that Picasso and Matisse made for the Russses Ballets at the beginning of the 20Diane Arbus and Peter Lavery.

But above all, he has a lot of cinema.His designs seem modern interpretations of the color of Sergei Parajanov grenades, and his photos are dying of the desire to tell stories, one looks like a frame of the Midsommar movie, by Ari Aster, but Pietri's referents are a little moreold, a little higher."Cinema is my favorite and platonic medium.I found my passion for costumes and the scenery in the work of directors such as Fellini, Jodorowsky, Parajanov, Cocteau, Švankmajer, Greenaway.For the love of the imaginary worlds of cinema I wanted.

This grass of references, universal and colorful, coexists in maximalist pieces, dyed with natural, playful and timeless dyes.You can all buy them by writing a direct message on Instagram, and if that seems very informal, thank you, that if it were not because we live in the times that we lived Costaiia would live in a nomadic tent difficult to track.

Before saying goodbye, I need to know, what comes after the dresses?Because I doubt this stay here.“For now my idea is to continue testing new handmade techniques such as embroidery, wood painting, fabrics and different textiles.Continue to materialize ideas in clothing, accessories, objects and one day experiences."