pajaro4
REGIA & VICTORIA
is a fashion brand working with the artisans who inherited traditional Colombian crafts and techniques from our ancestors. We mix the power and playfulness of contemporary design with our own culture, with aesthetics informed by the bursting colors and a myriad of weaves that germinated centuries ago in valleys, mountain peaks, riverbanks, rainforests and deserts now blending together in our tropical motherland.

Our highly-crafted accessories designed to enhance your outfit in daily urban life or summer days, result from a care-giving and sustainable production process, which takes place entirely in Colombia. With every thread, fabric and dye we seek to build a fashion project to reconnect us with our cultural roots so we can take a part in preserving them and also, in sharing them with the world.
ABOUT THE DESIGNER

Carolina Melo

Born on the Eastern Plains of Colombia, Carolina experienced her childhood in an environment with a constant contact with the wilderness and the rural job, accompanied by her father who passed on to her his conviction for the land and the value of native culture. Travelling this varied landscape, she got in touch with the social differences of her country from an early age. She stablished herself thus as an adaptive human being, which determined her future as a bridge, bringing together tradition and contemporary languages.

Along her 10 years of professional journey, working with artisanal Colombian communities and based on their traditional techniques, she specialized on designing and producing fashion and home deco products getting to export to the most prestigious international stores. All this experience has driven her to start R&V, not just a business but an opportunity to contribute to building a more inclusive country, proud of its roots.
carolina-melo
THE STORY BEHIND OUR PRODUCTS




IRACA
IRACA WOVEN PALM FIBER
MARIA’S WORKSHOP
Sandoná, Nariño – Colombia

During her childhood, María would spend hours in the family workshop where women of her lineage weaved the region’s traditional crafts. When she was fourteen, she decided to get together with a group of school friends to sell products crafted using this technique. She soon realized that a good part of the profits remained in the intermediaries’ hands so she turned to state aid, seeking to learn how to manage her business in such a way that she could skip those intermediaries. Today, María leads a workshop where women from 45 families work in separate groups depending on their personal skills.

These women meet at the workshop to share their knowledge with each other and organize the business’ logistics. They also discuss ways to innovate, creating products that allow them to open up to new markets while remaining faithful to the meaning and forms of the traditional technique.

The iraca for the weaving is brought to the workshop, prepared to be dyed, from a crop that grows four hours away from Sandoná. Once it has been harvested for the first time, the straw can be collected once a week.
iraca
molayrama
MOLA
HAND MADE TEXTILE
GUNA WOMEN
Caimán Nuevo tribe, Antioquia – Colombia

Since before the Spanish conquest of America, Guna women have used natural dyes to mark their bodies with abstract or figurative geometric forms which, according to common belief, protected them from evil spirits, sun rays, and bug bites. Colonization and subsequent acculturation provided the Gunas with new materials and, through the years, the figures migrated from the women’s bodies to fabrics and the threads on their garments.

Most of the guna people now live in Panama except for two communities settled in Colombia. One of them is Caimán Nuevo, between Turbo and Necoclí, on the banks of the Caiman River. Of its 1500 members, 300 are craftswomen who fabricate molas using the reverse appliqué technique. By producing and selling these pieces, women from this community explore and express their creativity, support the preservation of their cultural traditions and make their lifestyle sustainable.