In the Western tailoring system, encoded in cuts and curves, what predominates is the silhouette of the person wearing the clothes, rather than their fabric or history.

But Mexican indigenous clothing results from the joining together of square and rectangular panels. It’s a unique textile origami that uses these two figures as the base from which to construct any other form using folds, pleats and stitching.

This system of patterning interests us for both its vernacular significance, which we consider the path to the future, and for its constructive and architectural quality.

The geometric clothes worn by indigenous women can be read like open books that tell the life stories of the weavers who made them. If a page were cut out, or divided with seams, it would be impossible to read the entire narrative.

We gave this system the name “la raíz cuadrada,” the square root, because we work with the roots of Mexico and this way of patterning as tools of design.