Adriana Meunié
Pure sentiment
What makes a sensitive, intelligent young women of the world who speaks 5 languages grow tired of the big international fashion production business one fine day, and leave behind big cities like Barcelona or Berlin to move to a small village on Mallorca and weave on a loom? This is the story of Adriana Meunié.
text César Mateu Moyà
photography Íñigo Vega
Before returning to her homeland of Mallorca, to set out on a new path, Adriana wanted to travel to New Mexico, the cradle of the loom. Her aim was to learn from the experts, to understand how they work and what their secrets were. During that stay in America, she experienced some mixed feelings. “I understood that I am a Mallorcan and above all, I must take care of my island”, says the person who has been working on a daily basis for five years now with wool, esparto, raffia, old threads and pieces of leather with stories behind them in her Felanitx workshop.
At the age of 29 Adriana had tired of a world others would dream of forming part of: international fashion and all that goes with it. “When I was younger, there was a time when I loved wearing clothes by multinational brands, but one day I reached the point where I didn’t want to go into any shops, I wore the first thing I could find, even if it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing. Later on, I grew tired of living in big cities and working on big productions. I stopped being interested in fashion, but I was however still fascinated by fabrics. My dream was to do something ancestral, using raw materials, reclaim their beauty. I feel as though Mallorca is lost, nobody looks after the island’s ancient culture”, complains Adriana, who discovers a world full of emotions in tradition. “Wool smells, and it’s like having a piece of reality in your home. I feel sorry for people in New York, who live stuck inside four walls, when it would be so good for them to have some wool to reconnect with tradition and the land”.
As well as working on the loom, Adriana has her own clothes brand, Odeminui. “When I worked in large productions, I was consumed by the pressure, nerves and anxiety. Now I design my clothes without reaching those suffocating levels of stress”, she explains. For her creations, she uses indigenous products, like Mallorcan thread. “My aspiration is for the people who wear my clothes to feel very comfortable, and I want to lend them a special, personal touch. I love the fact that people can express themselves through the way they dress”.
The clothes Adriana creates are unisex and by no means conventional. While women have asserted their masculinity by wearing trousers, for example, she feels that the time has now come [...]
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