If you love Mexican textiles, I invite you to visit Casa Oaxaca. You have to be a little adventuresome since their shop is located away from city central in the Emiliano Zapata barrio on the slowly changing Calle Aquiles Serdan.
As you enter this modern showroom, where art and home décor reign, you will see numerous hand-woven baskets and wall hangings. Deeper into the interior are shelves from floor to ceiling of multi-colored table runners, napkins, placemats, and tablecloths; pillows in rich earth tones piled high; beautiful wood tables, some cut from huge slabs of Parota tree trunks, displaying complete settings for your dining inspiration. Rugs of all colors, designs, and sizes are on the back wall. Only natural materials and dyes are used in all their products.
The very knowledgeable owner, Alberto Contreras, a Zapotec, grew up in Oaxaca, where his family has been weavers and dyers for over four generations. Their main factory is in Oaxaca, where their Zapotec culture is woven into the designs and colors of the textiles they create.
The wool for their beautiful rugs and tapestries comes partly from their sheep and partly from the wool buyers who come to the Oaxaca markets. This wool is right off the sheep, so it has to be washed to remove dirt, sticks, and other debris before it is ready for carding and spinning.
One kilogram of dirty wool gives half a kilogram of clean wool after washing! They also use local cotton and linen.
There are 20 basic natural dyes from which 1400 colors can be made. The two most popular are the reds from the nopal cactus insect cochinilla and the blues from indigo made by boiling the leaves of the indigo tree.
Other colors include yellow from the marigold or cempasuchitl, the same flower important in Day of the Dead celebrations; green from alfalfa; brown from pecan shells; and black from huizache berries.
As you can imagine, the process of making the dyes is complicated and done by only certain family members trained in this skill.
At the back of the showroom, there is a demonstration area. Here, baskets of unwashed wool, skeins of naturally dyed yarn in lovely colors, a spinning wheel, and a pine loom are set up. Alberto or one of his brothers is happy to explain how they obtain the colors from the flowers and shells.
They will also show how textiles are woven on pine looms like the one on display. This shop has been Alberto’s dream for many years. He came from Oaxaca over ten years ago to begin selling his family’s rugs at the roving tianguis we see in various shopping mall parking lots around Mexico.
He opened his first tiny shop here in Vallarta a few years ago but wanted a larger space to showcase the many talents of his family.
Stop by and say hello. You might find something you just have to have! Casa Oaxaca, Aquiles Serdan #377 in the Emiliano Zapata Colonia. Open Monday – Saturday 10-8.
