BENEAI
The famous slow luxury, fashion with purpose brand, based out of Lima, is now also available in Amsterdam.
Ani Alvarez Calderon x BENEAI collective designs timeless conscious ready to wear luxury garments in collaboration with artists from the Shipibo Conibo community of the Peruvian amazonian rainforest, resulting in preservation of ancestral art techniques. At the heart of this collaboration is the preservation of Kene Art; the process of creation and the wisdom in this ancestral practice. Read more about this process in the section below.
Ani’s vision is to make her cultural heritage transcend through her fashion statements as a modern renewed artistic concept of 'Wearable Art'.
Did you know that every line in Kene Art has a meaning?
The Jaguar protects one against evil spirits and the Anaconda is considered the mother of the universe, symbolising the connection between the universe and your inner wisdoms for healing.
Curated limited selection available in Amsterdam, by appointment only.
The Preservation of Kene Textiles
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Kene art is a cultural expression carried by an ancestral and natural process. A practice carried from generation to generation, from mother to daughter.
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Each textile is a woven story. A unique combination of geometric line-work and symbolic figures, representing the worldview of the Shipibo Conibo Community.
The process of textile making (in a nutshell);
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The artists use tree barks and plants from the Amazon Rainforest as paint.
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They each create a natural dye, by boiling the desired ingredient in water.
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Once the color is transferred onto the water, the artist dyes the cotton fabric by hand; a process that requires patience and precision.
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The textiles are then put to dry in the sun, this process is repeated until the cotton fabric holds the desired color.
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To create the design onto the cotton fabric, artists use a sacred mud. They travel to the river creeks that hold this sacred mud.
To acquire this sacred mud, the artist performs a ceremony of gratitude to Mother Earth, Pachamama.
This practice symbolises the perspective of respect the Shipibo Conibo hold towards nature.
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Once the design is created onto the cotton fabric, the hand painted artwork is completed.
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A further process is to hand embroider the hand painted textile. In this process the artists use cotton threads to add color and intricate details to their artwork.
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Depending on the size of the cotton textile, artists can take up to three months to hand embroider one artwork.
To find out more about this beautiful collaboration, please view this video.