Ep 81 / Chatting with Paula Delgado about sustainable fashion, fabrics and the best wool in the world
The woman who joins us on the podcast today is a fundamental piece in our clothing collection. We have grown with her in these years, she is our advisor and teacher. Today we have the pleasure of chatting, from the other hemisphere of the Planet, with our dear Paula Delgado, founder of ound .
Paula has been an artist, fashion designer for 15 years and founder of her own wonderful project: ound. A brand that is based on nature and that works with natural materials such as wool, silk... and from which incredible pieces emerge that we all want to wear and feel. Pieces as unique as the vest that we at zubi have just launched in collaboration with ound.
We have to say that thanks to Paula, zubi clothing exists. Because she has been with us from the beginning creating our collection, it is a project that she has seen birth and grow and that, as she herself states, she feels like a son. And the icing on the cake on this beautiful path is our new vest, our Christmas gift for all of you.
“I remember that we started creating the garments as a continuity to the zubi bag collection, it was a moment of maturation as a brand; We needed a collection of clothing that showed what we are,” Paula explains in the podcast.
And that's how we remember it. What was the design of those first dresses like? Those Madrid-Uruguay connections, week after week, without being able to touch fabrics but learning at every step and making a thousand changes until we found that perfect dress, just the one we would want to wear. Without a doubt in these years we have done a master's degree with Paula, and the best thing is that we continue learning with her.
And then… the vest arrives. This new vest has involved a very enriching process with a unique hand-woven merino wool product. Precisely the high quality of its fabric and the manufacturing process are what make it unique. Because each vest is knitted, one by one, by women from rural areas of Uruguay who make their living with wool and who have created groups of weavers. The beauty of this process is that we even know the name of the person who does it. Because at the head of these women is Gabriela, a very valuable and talented person. “Gabriela is unique, she makes clothes that last a thousand years,” Paula tells us. And it is she, with her five weavers, who weave our production. Each vest takes about two days to make.
Paula is all wisdom when she talks about wool and its properties, about sheep, how they are sheared... She has the answers to everything! For example, did you know that wool doesn't keep you warm? What wool does is insulate and maintain your body temperature. “Its properties are the thermal insulation it generates, absorbs moisture and provides comfort. A wool sweater insulates and absorbs body moisture and repels moisture from the outside, and that's why you feel more comfortable,” Paula tells us. Come on, you could wear a ound wool sweater even in summer, can you imagine?
Chatting with Paula we have seen how destiny sometimes ends up driving our lives. Your brand story is a great example. She worked for 15 years in the “hard” fashion industry and it was a personal need that led her to take the leap. “I learned a lot about what I want and don't want and I saw that I needed to do something that I could identify with. The development happened on its own. I didn't create a sustainable clothing brand, the brand emerged because it came with me. It was part of my vital need, for things to work differently,” he remembers. “My life led me to do this.”
In each garment Paula wants to convey that there is a new way of seeing clothes and objects, where one chooses only what is good for one. For her, clothing represents much more than a price, it represents a way of seeing the world, of working, of respect for people and the Planet. “I dream of responsible consumption that improves the situation in the world and gives a better Planet to our children.”
Without a doubt, ound is nature; very high quality undyed wool that preserves the natural colors of the sheep, hand-woven garments, silks with natural dyes that she makes herself… “I think that when it is done this way, value is generated, I am part of the process and this is also a fundamental part of my brand and that I transmit to my clients. If I didn't do it this way my production would be larger, but that doesn't matter to me because it makes the garments more special.”
Both Paula and us at zubi share these values in production and fashion, with durable garments that create a bond with the customer and that tell a story. And we see changes in the fashion industry that are happening little by little thanks to the fact that, increasingly, the customer wants to consume in a different way. “The change is generated by the client themselves and this will force companies to change. The client is in charge,” says Paula.
A clear symptom is capsule wardrobes, a concept that zubi has always supported. As Paula tells us, “making a capsule wardrobe is not a trend, it is something ethical and fundamental.” And from there: think before buying. Paula's advice: “let's think.” “Let's think about whether that garment will be worn for more than one season, if it will last for many years and if it will age well.”
Our new vest with ound represents all these concepts and also becomes an easy garment to combine. “It is designed for that, it has a utility, it is not just a beautiful garment. It is designed to interact with the rest of the garments in the zubi collection and give a lot of play”, this is what Paula, who has been the architect of this new jewel, told us.
A vest with a thousand stories that we tell you in this new podcast. Stories and anecdotes like that of the zubi labels, which had to arrive in Uruguay to be sewn on each garment. They arrived, yes, but in such an incredible and magical way that I don't think you can even imagine. As was? You'll have to listen to the podcast...
https://www.ound-ound.com/
