It was in 1981 that I traveled to Mexico. I found myself in the State of Chiapas, Mexico where I met Sarah Kalvin, an unofficial anthropologist, who started a project called IxChel Maya Hand-weaving. Because of my sewing skills she invited me to work with her to showcase the Maya culture and craftsmanship not seen in other parts of the world.
I found the Maya weavings incredibly colorful and beautiful, and I started to fulfill my dream of working with handmade fabrics. Together we created clothing for the western world to wear. This was challenging, but a wonderful and unexpected development in my travels.
We worked together in Chiapas for over a year producing garments made of hand-woven fabrics of cotton and hand spun wool. We also worked with embroideries and brocaded fabrics from Chamula, Tenejapa, and other small villages surrounding the city of San Cristobal de Las Casas.
Circumstances led us to leave Chiapas and we settled in California which was Sarah’s home state. We set up shop and continued to work for over 10 years with hand-woven fabrics from Guatemala. We produced hundreds of garments that sold exceedingly well in a shop on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, California.
I returned to Austria in 1994 and later Sarah joined me and we worked with the well-known Viennese silkscreen artist Vesna.
2006 I created my own clothing label, Wings of Creation, which was inspired by the wings and vibrant colors of the Central American Quetzal bird that sits on shoulder of the Maya Moon Goddess of weaving and healing; Ix-chel.
Soon after creating my own company I was chosen along with 8 other designers to participate at the 2007 Ringstrassengallerien Vienna fashion awards. And together with Gabriela Jegumna, a top Austrian designer, we created wonderful and stylish pieces made of the fabrics I had purchased and collected for the Uzbek Collection.
After participating in numerous fashion shows, I opened a shop in my home-town Klosterneuburg. There I manufacture garments made from the patterns I created together with Sarah Kalvin when working for IxChel in the 1980s, and also with high fashion patterns by Gabriela Jegumna of Austria.
My objective is to create clothing that is timeless. Recently I met an American artist living now in Klosterneuburg, who purchased a garment from IxChel 28 years ago. She still wears it today. That proves to me that my work is collectable.
Novelty Jackets are my specialty, and customers and collectors purchased and wear them with delight. My client-base is made up of individuals with a vision similar to mine. This involves the concepts of exclusively using fabrics made of natural fibers, produced with fair-trade conditions for weavers and workers in the production of garments.
My garments are made of fabrics from around the globe. The following are
the people I work with:
• Blockprints from India, with Ismael Mohammed Khatri
• Lizzy Mayrl - fabrics from Kirgistan
• Otto Gatternig - fabrics from Thailand
• Elisabeth Brändle - fabrics from Indonesia
• Farida and Hannes Reinisch, with fabrics from Laos and Cambodia
• Gabriele Schaumberger with fabics from the Refugee Camps of Burma in Thailand
• Fam. Koo with Blueprints from Austria
• Davut Mizrahi with fabrics from Uzbekistan
• Nicole Fields with fabrics from Zimbabwe and Senegal
•Embroidered hand-woven linen from Rumania