Jasmine Aarons

San Francisco-based product designer Jasmine Aarons saw working with Chilean artisans and the Fair Trade movement as an amazing platform for socially meaningful design that reaches out to broader and design-focused audiences. As part of a Stanford University post-graduate fellowship, Aarons joined forces with the Chol-Chol Foundation to form Project Chol Chol, which seeks to financially empower the indigenous communities and bring their fashions to mainstream consumers.

What is the concept behind the Chol-Chol Foundation?

It’s a fair trade nonprofit in the Araucanian region of Southern Chile whose main purpose is to help indigenous Mapuche communities out of poverty. Though for the past 30 years the Chol-Chol Foundation has done this in many ways, only over the last decade has it evolved into a Fair Trade organization that works with female weavers.

How did Project Chol Chol come about?

I am a product designer with the entrepreneurial mind, and I saw an amazing potential for marrying design sensitivity to socially conscientious financial models. However, as in the case of the Chol-Chol Foundation, traditional indigenous products do not connect to mainstream audiences, especially in the fashion world. In order for products to sell for more than their exotic mystic or Fair Trade social values on a large scale, they need to look unique or stylish to compete with non Fair Trade alternatives.

So I spearheaded “Project Chol Chol”, a creative collaboration between me, the Chol-Chol Foundation and the Mapuche artisans associated with the foundation. Our aim is to create new contemporary and chic products forms with the Mapuche textiles that reach out to broader audiences. For example, with subtle changes, a purse can be made unique or a sweater more flattering without distorting the authentic beauty of the Mapuche craft work.

What products do you carry?

A series of bags, belts, scarves, wraps, a sweater and a dress. We see this collection as the beginning of a continually evolving set of products that reflect a chic and elegant contemporary adaption of Mapuche weavings. My main aesthetic priority is to feature the Mapuche symbols and authentic indigenous beauty strongly to bring something precious and different into the fashion and design world.

Where can consumers buy the products?

We are still finessing the production for the designs of Project Chol Chol and will have them on the market for 2011. Consumers can take a look at the product line and learn about the project at indigenousinnovation.com. They can also buy many of the foundation’s beautiful products at the nonprofit’s website and catalog (in English and Spanish).

What do you hope Project Chol Chol will accomplish?

We hope this project and the principles behind it help make Fair Trade more accessible to consumers. We have realized that even the most socially conscientious consumers put looks and product quality before a product’s message when purchasing. Through a design innovation, we feel we can reach not only social consumers but also people interested in a product’s physical attributes, and in turn educate a lot more people about Fair Trade.

The Chol Chol Foundation will inaugurate Project Chol Chol at a benefit trunk show at Emily Joubert Home and Garden in Woodside, Calif. on Oct. 9.

What are some of your favorite fair trade products?