Hola Querides,

Summer is here!

June arrives with new projects, stories from the year, and things I want to share with you.

May marked the close of my first year as a professor at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón — and we celebrated in a big way. My team and I ended the semester with a runway show and two apparel trade fairs that, from here on out, will be a permanent part of the fashion curriculum. A collective achievement worth naming out loud.

This summer I'm staying active: I'm offering courses at the undergraduate level and in continuing education, and there's a commercial mission to Colombia that — if you have any interest in fashion — you cannot afford to miss.

All of that and more, in this edition.

Why design for manufacturabilty?

Here you go:

This is how the story goes:

In the summer of 2010, I was an unemployed designer — because I had quit my job, awakened to how damaging the fashion industry was for the planet, and decided that the obvious solution was to start my own brand — in my twenties, in the middle of a recession. Many of my friends were still out of work. And it occurred to me that, with no money, no team, and five years of experience working for New York brands that had never set foot at fashion week, it was the perfect moment to launch a sustainable clothing brand and debut it at New York Fashion Week.

The logic was impeccable.

When I told my family, my friends from the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York, and those back on the island — architects, makeup artists, stylists, costume designers, artists and designers — instead of telling me "you're crazy, sit down," they said: what do you need? What came next was a labor of love I still struggle to put into words.

In the basement of my apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — adventures that, by the way, were documented in an episode that won CUNY TV an Emmy in 2012.

I designed 25 looks for the runway — men's and women's, long and short, wide and narrow. Silk, organic cotton, hemp, recycled polyester. Dobbies, canvas, jerseys, lace. Even a print inspired by Toño Bicicleta, designed by my namesake and friend Raquel Berrios. Everything I learned at Moore College of Art and Design, put into one collection. Everything.

Curiously, my college friends — the ones who knew the most about fashion — were the least enthusiastic. None of them were Puerto Rican, and I think that's where the difference lies: Puerto Ricans have this almost instinctive need to claim spaces where we are not visible. It's one of our ways of resisting within the colony. They understood perfectly the magnitude of what I was attempting — perhaps that's why they stayed quiet. The rest of my friends, the ones who knew nothing about fashion weeks or textile production, said yes without thinking twice. Because sometimes ignorance isn't just bold — it's generous.

To fund it, I launched a Kickstarter campaign — without really knowing how. Feel free to laugh, here's the evidence. My brother edited the video from Puerto Rico, because of course, who else?

The collection included accessories — because obviously — hats and belts carved from the root of the cupey tree by master artisan Isaac Laboy, who, for the record, didn't charge me a cent at first, though we eventually reached a payment agreement, because I was never going to accept them for free. When my mom and brother showed up at the Charcas neighborhood in Quebradillas to ask for the favor, the idea of "reinventing the pava" for a runway show in New York probably gave him a laughing fit. Twelve pavas, four belts. One week. He made them. The jewelry was designed by Luiny using fabric scraps dyed by Colibrí Textiles, one of the oldest textile houses in New York.

$5,732 raised, 109 donors — and there I was. Three weeks to cut and sew over 40 pieces, with no studio of my own — unless you count my home Kenmore machine and my IKEA desk as formal infrastructure. My only salvation was Josefina: pattern maker, seamstress, and thankfully, neighbor four houses down. Her studio became my second home — and honestly my first too, because I barely went back to my apartment until the day before the show.

About two and a half weeks before the show, my partner in crime Glori tells me: "Aura, I think we need to bring more people in to get this done." She saw what I didn't want to see — without help, this wasn't going to happen. Glori is the best project manager of complicated and emotionally charged situations I have ever known. She has that rare ability to see chaos clearly and not panic. I clearly did not have that.

Cut to: her mom Marta flew in from Puerto Rico — yes, Glori paid for her mom's ticket, who also sews, to come help us. My mom arrived too. And between Josefina, Glori, Marta, my mom and me, the team started to take shape. Key people joined along the way: Mayumi Yamada, an expert Japanese seamstress studying tailoring in New York; Zaida Goveo Balmaseda, a FIT student, Puerto Rican and enormously talented textile artist; Jennifer McGregor, a Scottish woman freshly graduated from fashion courses in Spain, who would eventually become my business partner and inspire the only fall collection I ever designed under the brand. All of them doing their internships at my freshly born "fashion brand."

On the day of the show, my mom finished sewing the last garment at 11pm — interpreting, better than anyone, what was frankly a scribble. Not very different from the "inventions" I used to draw for her as a little girl so she would sew them for me. That garment received the most press coverage of the entire collection. She sewed it two hours before we left for Manhattan. It's called Antonia, like her.

Days before the show — and those who know fashion will understand this — besides needing the 25 looks finished on the outside, even if the insides were questionable, we needed music, accessories, shoes, sponsors, goodie bags, and complete show styling. To the rescue came the magnificent Johana Laracuente — who deserves an entire newsletter dedicated solely to her artistic career — celebrity stylist extraordinaire, who handled all the show styling. Toms sponsored the shoes. Don't judge me — it was 2010, when we all believed sustainable fashion was possible within capitalism and the "one for one" model was solving something.

The show was a complete success. I received press coverage I never imagined: WWD — the only daily trade paper I subscribed to while living in NYC, I read it religiously — Elle Turkey, Vogue Italia, The Guardian. And thanks to journalist and friend Nuria Net, even a full feature in the NY Daily News.

What happened next? You'd think, dear reader, that the weeks following the show I would have been incredibly busy — riding all that press, filling orders, placing the collection in every possible point of sale.

NO.

Because the day after the show, I collapsed. Epic physical exhaustion, fever, sinus infection — the basement where I lived was eternally full of mold, as one might expect. I couldn't do anything but recover for an entire week.

When I emerged from that week of catacomb and started returning calls, this was the landscape: people wanted to borrow the show samples for editorial photoshoots in fashion magazines across the country. Friends who wore a size 4 wanted to buy them all. Stores and showrooms wanted to know if the brand had wholesale representation and where they could see the collection up close to decide whether to carry it.

That is exactly the point of designing clothes. And what happened?

NOTHING.

Those samples were not ready to be evaluated by a buyer — even though they looked divine on the runway. And designers live off sales — not press, not glamour, not applause. Off what was sold. And I hadn't sold a thing yet. Nothing!

Eventually I did sell. I did pop-ups in Puerto Rico, trunk shows in New York, got into stores, apparel trade shows, boutiques. But of those 25 looks, I only produced about 10%. The rest never made it past sample stage — because developing a design into a sellable product has a cost: size grading, digitized and corrected patterns, iterated samples until the fits are consistent, investment in fabrics and trims. With so many different pieces and so little margin, something always gives. The menswear I never developed. And I lost a crucial sales window by having designed for a runway — not for manufacturing.

I thought the show was the destination. It was the starting point.

Seven years later, working in a factory, I understood what no university course could ever teach me. And from that experience — and others that don't fit in this newsletter and will be saved for another — is why I teach. Why I design. Why I collaborate. Whether with undergraduate students, adults in continuing education at FIT, or as a consultant, I always build the same bridge: the one that connects what is imagined with what can actually be made.

That is exactly why I teach design for manufacturing.

DDesign & Producibility @ QuNa

The programming is outstanding. The classes are taught by colleagues and friends I deeply admire: Basic Sewing with designer Edwin Muñiz, Embroidery with Héctor Omar, Cut and Sew with Nasheli herself. And of course — I will be offering Design and Producibility.

An 8-week course, two hours per session, where you will learn to take your idea, your design, your line — and turn it into a product that is communicable, producible, and understandable to a factory, without you having to be there clarifying every detail. Because your patterns, your documentation, and your design will be executed well enough that quoting the order, making a sample, and moving into production becomes straightforward. If you are in Puerto Rico, reach out to QuNa to enroll.

Master Class and Commercial Mission to Colombia

My friend, partner and colleague Ruby has spent over 15 years building a solid alliance with Inexmoda — the organization that drives the fashion industry in Colombia. She also leads commercial missions to the country's major trade fairs for people interested in producing apparel, accessories, textiles, and interiors. Her practice is based between Puerto Rico and Medellín, and when the mission is textile, I'm in.

Beyond the trade fairs, Ruby organizes factory and supplier tours on satellite dates — and sometimes we bring together clients with similar needs to spend an entire week among suppliers and factories, even when there's no fair happening. Medellín is the epicenter of fashion and production in Colombia, so there's always somewhere to go and someone worth meeting.

The problem we see on every mission, without fail, is the same: excited clients, full of ideas, convinced they know what they're looking for — who arrive in Colombia without the foundation to make the most of the trip. Not because they're careless, but because they don't know what they don't know. What are the real production timelines? How do tariffs work? What documentation does your design need for a factory to quote you? What is negotiable and what isn't? What happens when you show up with an idea in your head and no tech pack in your hand?

We have enough stories for five years of newsletters exclusively on the subject.

So we decided: the next missions we collaborate on will include a mandatory master class — here in Puerto Rico, before anyone gets on a plane. It's not an add-on. It's the starting point. Because a commercial mission without technical preparation is industrial tourism with a one-way ticket.

The panel includes a lawyer, a ProColombia representative, a Colombian factory, Ruby, and me.

Guess what I'll be talking about, besides sustainability and circular economy?

Design for Manufacturing. On June 26th, write to me if you'd like to participate.

Summer @ Sagrado: Design for Manufacturing

Do you have a project you want to develop sustainably? Let's talk.