A startup drives sustainable fashion in Peru
A Peruvian won the Globant award for her proposal of a sustainable fashion business model in Peru. This is Ornela Paz, a girl who started promoting sustainable fashion in Peru in 2015 through her first venture with an NGO.
Sustainable fashion in Peru was a very new proposal and few people understood it.
“I had to work with my team on research, education, and raising awareness about fashion production and consumption habits, both in companies and in everyday citizens,” Paz said.
The Peruvian promotes sustainable fashion in Peru made by artisans and entrepreneurs.
It is processed through responsible production practices, the use of natural inputs, ancestral and circular techniques, and each garment and accessory reflects the stories and culture of their communities.
“During the pandemic, I experienced the limitations that this modality presents, so I understood the relevance of technology to continue connecting the stories and products of Peruvian women entrepreneurs to more people, but also the importance of technology to scale our businesses and purposes,” she explained.
Thus, in 2018 she founded Quranteby (formerly BEE VERSA), a platform that democratizes access for Peruvian artisans and entrepreneurs to new markets through collective, inclusive commercialization, and technology.
The learning process of building an e-commerce is constant.
sustainable fashion in Peru: Objectives
Although she is not a technology specialist, she has a background in communication and having interacted with other digital platforms before, she had the spirit of an entrepreneur.
But Peruvian sustainable fashion still has a long way to go, but for now Ornela Paz was recognized by Globant in the “Women who Build” category as an Emerging Star.
One of the objectives of this sustainable fashion in Peru is to obtain funds to develop the second version of its own e-commerce. In addition to Artificial Intelligence applications that help with commercialization.
On the other hand, they seek to start exporting together with DHL.
At Quranteby, they enable global access and use technology to boost their businesses; to sell their products to citizens around the world. Quranteby seeks to promote its businesses in exchange for an inclusive payment model, and for that, technology is everything.
The Peruvian sustainable fashion startup, facilitates access to new markets for artisans and entrepreneurs, has just launched its first capsule collection inspired by Amazonian art and the Shipibo-Conibo community.
According to data from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, 90% of the Peruvian artisan population has disappeared due to lack of commercial opportunities.
For example, in the production of a collection, practices such as upcycling and recycling were carried out, using textile leftovers and PET plastic bottle threads in each of the embroideries made 100% by hand by artisans from the Shipibo-Conibo community.
In addition, from a circular perspective, buttons, zippers, and labels were avoided in the garments in order to avoid waste generation, as part of sustainable fashion in Peru.
