Valerie Pint’s affinity for the fashion industry came naturally through her enjoyment of its products. “I just like clothes and handbags,” she says, but she came to understand that the industry’s opulence and variety comes at a cost. “Fashion is just bad for the environment. A garbage truck of textiles goes to the landfill every minute.” So she birthed Free to Breathe. The industry was simply doing too many things wrong. Valerie believes in responsible fabric selection and usage, in minimizing environmental damage in both fabric composition and sourcing, in compensating female artisans and workers to encourage education and community development, and doing all of this while offering fashion products for women of all ages and sizes, giving them the ability to choose responsibly made fashions that will last, but will also make them feel beautiful. A big order? Absolutely. But that’s what happens when she wants to change lives. “We have to start somewhere,” she declares. And it looks like she’s decided it will start with her.
MILENA LASSO / DESIGNER
MILENA LASSO / DESIGNER
An artisan both by trade and by heritage, Milena is a Panamanian Guna indigenous woman whose parents crafted in traditional Mola patterns and passed to Milena a love for their shared native culture. The geometric Mola designs are both the source and inspiration for Milena’s work. First used for body painting, Mola was transferred primarily to textiles about 150 years ago. More recently, they represent abstract designs common in the Guna world, flowers and animals, and have become a kind of living history book for her people. Milena, in wanting to bring her culture to the world, has been adapting Mola patterns to her own contemporary experience for 8 years. Her designs, whose needlework is still handcrafted by local Guna women, bring their ancient culture into ours. As she reaches out from Panama, Milena is linking the old and the new while employing her personal values of sustainability and fair trade. As artisans are compensated properly all along the supply chain, she helps build dignity not only for the women of her homeland, but for each person who knowingly participates by purchasing and wearing her work.
AMANDA GUARDADO / DESIGNER
AMANDA GUARDADO / DESIGNER
It took a trip to Panama in 2012 for Amanda Guardado to confirm that she was destined to be a fashion designer. Until then, she had been headed for a career in architecture, but things changed, and fast. After earning a BA in fashion and textile design at the University of Monterey, Mexico, she launched her brand, focusing on timeless cruise line fashions for women. Her clothes, intended to make confident women feel beautiful, are designed with an intentional step back from passing trends, but preserving a contemporary feel. And they do something else, too. They upcycle fabrics from the fashion industry’s infamous cycle of waste. “I want to help, not harm,” she says. “I want to give them a new life.” In the process, she also gives her clothing’s owners a kind of new life. Not only are her garments all wash and wear, needing neither dry cleaning nor ironing, she remembers how new clothes are supposed to make a woman feel. “I’m nicer when I like my outfit. Getting dressed is personal. Every person interprets it for themselves.”