18 Jessica Rodríguez’s Art Atlas

Fair Fashion from Peru to the World

Dalila Boclin

At a coffee shop in Boston or in a Parisian boutique, a “Fair Trade” sticker may signify little more than a label or a distant ideal. But at Art Atlas, fair trade is not a corporate strategy or a means to a mark-up; it is a way of life—a brand of human sympathy that cannot be understood in terms of products or currency. Jessica Rodríguez, founder of Art Atlas, knows this feeling well and has built a business based on fairness that has enriched the lives of hundreds of impoverished villagers across Peru.

Peru’s history has been marked with political instability. Since its independence from Spain in 1821, military coups and authoritarian regimes have disrupted the official constitutional republic.¹ Persistent government turmoil and various political turnovers have undermined the economy’s ability to achieve sustained growth. The national economy was struck yet again in 1982 with the occurrence of El Niño, which produced extreme weather patterns across the nation and caused international commodity prices to plummet lower than those of the Great Depression. The ensuing crisis worsened living conditions for Peru’s poor, as did the political unrest that provoked the emergence of various terrorist groups and a destructive drug trade.² It was not until 2001, when the Toledo administration came to power, that Peru recovered its democracy and began to experience economic growth.³ The economy began to expand rapidly in 2002. From 2002 to 2006 it grew by over 4 percent per year, and jumped to 9 percent per year during 2007 and 2008.⁴ This boom has helped to lower the national poverty rate by about 15 percent since 2002, although the percentage of those living below the poverty line still hovers at around 36 percent.⁵ The percentage of individuals who fail to earn income above the poverty index bears greater significance when considering the unemployment rate, which at 9 percent demonstrates a tremendous need for significantly gainful employment.⁶

Since 1999, Art Atlas has been producing sweaters, scarves, shirts, and other garments that have been exported all over the world, but whose value is still rooted in their origin in Arequipa, Peru. Launched as a socially driven enterprise, Art Atlas has created a production model that creates opportunity not only for its workers, but also for all those involved along every step of its process, from the collaborators and clients to the final consumers.

The Origins of a Social Enterprise

It is possible to identify the beginnings of Art Atlas decades before the company came into being. From her childhood onward, Jessica Rodríguez has always been acutely aware of the disparate conditions of people in Arequipa, and has cared about giving to those who have less. Every year as her birthday approached, Jessica would beg her mother to invite all the poor children from the province to her party. She could not understand why she, one of a working-class family, had more, while so many others around her lived in poverty. Then, she could only wish to share what she had. Today Art Atlas is a wish come true, both for those living in poverty and for Jessica.

The real groundwork for Art Atlas was laid when Jessica was working as the administrative secretary to the vice president at Michell, one of Peru’s top producers of premium alpaca fabrics and yarns. Alpaca are native to the Andean region of South America, where, at its highest point, 4,500 meters above sea level, temperatures can range from plus or minus 20 degrees Celsius and both icy winds and solar radiation are uniquely intense.⁷ Alpaca fiber is recognized not only for its warmth and durability, but also for its softness and elegance, akin to cashmere and angora. Peru, among the world’s leading producers of alpaca fabrics and products, is home to many businesses that take advantage of the quality and distinctiveness of this product.

In 1999, a husband and wife team from France, hoping to learn more about Peruvian natural fabrics and refining processes, visited Michell, creating an opportunity to meet Jessica and begin a long relationship. Together, the three found that their mutual goals and philosophy could mesh to produce something far greater than any of them had anticipated. The couple had come to Peru hoping to partner with a producer of natural and organic clothing that they could sell in France. Their main concerns were health and environmental consciousness. They needed to guarantee that their garments would be produced only by ecologically sound processes and using only safe, natural, and organic materials. Jessica recognized that their concerns mirrored her own discomfort with social inequality and found a way to weave her own ambitions into the couple’s plans. Her window of opportunity began exactly where Michell’s ended: while Michell itself focuses on spinning, dyeing, and other processes leading up to final production, the French couple also needed a manufacturer to design and sew their clothing; the moment she heard this, Jessica imagined the hands of the artisans producing ecological garments. By framing her idea for a fair-wage venture according to the same tenets of responsible-living consumption, Jessica successfully entered into the first contract for what would become Art Atlas.

Social entrepreneurship has recently become a convenient term for describing businesses that generate profits but whose ultimate goal is social impact.⁸ For social entrepreneurs,

Thus, markets are not always the best platforms for social entrepreneurs:

When Jessica describes Peru’s problem in alleviating poverty, she explains how the education and literacy qualifications required by most jobs preclude virtually all those living in rural areas, where schools are sparse and lack resources, from finding employment. When she was conceptualizing her enterprise, she was aware that skill or literacy training alone is insufficient: “You have to provide an outlet,” she says, as she details how the first of Art Atlas’ tailors and artisans came to be.

To recruit employees, Jessica did not have to travel very far from her home in the city of Arequipa. Just a few miles into the countryside of Pampa Cañahuas, impoverished families live on far less than basic provisions. There Jessica found countless women with little, if any, education or craft skills, anxious to feed and clothe their children and more than eager to learn about the jobs she had to offer. Thus, Jessica launched

Figure 18.1 Jessica Rodríguez with Two of Her Employees

Source: Dalila Boclin.

the first of many training sessions: for the initial groups she enlisted professional seamstresses to conduct a series of lessons outlining the basic styles and techniques for making sweaters. As her enterprise grew, her veteran seamstresses would later work as instructors and helpers for artisans-in-training (see Figure 18.1).

With the first orders under way, Jessica and her family worked diligently to ensure the project would succeed. While still working full-time, Jessica would return from work to her living room-turned-workshop, inspecting and packing sweaters and ensuring their exceptional quality. Where today dozens of workers contribute to a precisely enumerated process, in its early days Art Atlas was a family affair, with Jessica’s own family and her husband’s family coordinating production.

Pleased with the quality and care that they saw in the garments, the French couple began to distribute catalogues and samples of Jessica’s products to organic markets throughout France. Little by little, Art Atlas developed a loyal customer base and a steady stream of orders. Just a year later, in 2000, Art Atlas was officially founded, although it would be another 7 years before its operations moved out of Jessica’s home. Jessica expanded the enterprise as the number of orders increased. She was able to run the business from her apartment for the first few years, but then transferred her work (and personal life) to her first home. Later she added a second floor to house the business and ultimately rented the two houses next door to accommodate production. “Little by little, as we could afford it,” she reflects. Finally, in 2007, Art Atlas moved to its current location, a warehouse in Arequipa, where all the administrative and some production tasks take place.

Today, both Jessica and her husband dedicate all their time to Art Atlas, Jessica focusing primarily on expanding sales and the production of high quality sweaters and her husband managing the company’s finances to ensure the sustainability of its social mission. Although Jessica ultimately left her job at Michell to pursue her own goals, she was always candid about her desire to expand Art Atlas. Because she had been transparent all along about her plans, she was able to turn to her mentor, Mr. Bedoya, vice president of Michell, for support and guidance even after she branched out.

A Winning Formula

Art Atlas’ distinguishing value rests in both the quality of its garments and its socially oriented employment practices. Meeting the French couple connected Jessica with the key to her success. She learned that there is a growing population concerned with the implications of their consumption beyond the transaction. She also gained insight into environmentally and socially conscious consumers and understood how the term “quality” could be applied to more than just a final product. With this in mind, she soon realized that there is a market for sound humanitarian practices, where fair prices are justified by their added social value. Just as the French couple were willing to pay a premium to ensure their own healthy and natural living, other buyers might be willing to ensure fair employment.

These two defining characteristics—exceptional quality and fair employment—are inextricably linked at Art Atlas. All of the company’s products use premium fabrics and dyes, such as fine alpaca thread or organic cotton, and nearly all are handmade to ensure quality. Although many of Jessica’s clients have some preference for buying from Art Atlas for its social mission, some care foremost about the garments themselves—whether for organic or fashion purposes. Nevertheless, Jessica has been able to offer such distinguished quality clothing because of the labor and care that her production process demands. Thus, ensuring that her product stands up to her clients’ expectations is essential to justifying Art Atlas’ premium prices and maintaining fair-wage labor.

Jessica’s business has grown at a rapid pace, enabling her to offer generous training and employment opportunities across the province. She provides work for her artisans on an as-needed basis. Over the last 10 years she has incorporated over 700 individuals under Art Atlas’ employment model, producing an average of 12,000 garments per month and generating about US$2 million annually in sales (as of 2009). However, even the socially conscious economy has slowed since the recession of 2008, but not without some moral cushion. While most Peruvian industries experienced an average decline of 30–40 percent in sales, Art Atlas was less affected, managing to maintain sales but not growing. Jessica chose to scale back on all her costs except for labor, and all Art Atlas employees received the same remuneration in 2009 as the year before.

Art Atlas’ production relies on orders from highly developed nations, where a stable upper and middle class can afford to make up the difference for fair wages. This market has tremendous potential as well as limitations: there is the potential to expand the market for social consciousness in areas such as Europe, North America, Scandinavia, and Japan; however, it must be a well-known brand that combines the quality, the organic and the know-how. For example, Jessica has yet to put any effort into domestic sales because she understands that the conditions under which many people live in Peru cannot currently afford to accommodate her employment practices and fair wages. But Jessica continues to monitor the economic climate, and hopes to launch a unique Peruvian boutique when the time is right.

Jessica laments over the various obstacles she has faced in trying to employ people. She notes that today there is a waiting list of those who want to be trained as Art Atlas tailors. Unfortunately, there is not enough work to ensure that every pair of hands can be kept busy; and although she trains the friends and families of her workers, she cannot offer the same “express” employment to everyone. She recounts the experience of one of her employees’ daughters who, at age 16, found herself pregnant out of wedlock. The seamstress turned to Jessica to help her daughter find meaningful employment. The legal age of employment in Peru is 18, and no minors may be employed in any way before they reach legal adulthood. Thus, regardless of her need, all the daughter could do was wait.

Because of this, guaranteeing a minimum amount of sales has been Jessica’s priority for Art Atlas. She tries to communicate the importance of sustainable work to her clients abroad and to explain how there are no stores of food or savings in the Peruvian communities to cushion against hard times. She does not ask her clients to commit to enormous orders, but rather to small, monthly orders that can keep her artisans busy. The problems Jessica faces now are not time crunches, like those of her days working in the apartment, but rather lulls—days and months with too little work for so many needy workers.

Jessica has had to learn how to position her social endeavor within the fashion industry. Art Atlas’ double bottom line is unique compared to other textile and garment producers, the majority of whom exploit cheap labor in developing nations. Jessica is keenly aware of her higher prices and narrower clientele. Thus, she has made incredible efforts to ensure she can continue to offer equal, if not greater, quality and value. For example, she assures her clients that Art Atlas can produce any garment in any stitch and has trained seamstresses in a variety of techniques. She also promises that she can produce any machine-made garment: because some of the tighter, more complicated stitches can be made only by machine, she does not want to run the risk of turning down orders that cannot be made by hand and has invested in several modern, industrial machines that can knit any difficult stitch. While she prefers orders for handmade goods, she recognizes the importance of having a diverse catalogue of services that match her clients’ needs rather than her own. Because she can meet their demands, Jessica is able to negotiate sales, requesting that her clients commit to at least some handmade pieces for every order of machine-made garments.

Promoting handmade goods has been quite a challenge for the most labor-demanding also more time-intensive (and thus more costly) of products. However, it requires very little investment in either hardware (knitting needles) or training (it is among the easiest skills to teach) and is not physically strenuous. Thus, some of Jessica’s neediest workers—older women who are better suited for simple tasks—usually bear the brunt of these compounded factors.

Jessica has been able to tackle this challenge and enfranchise the artisans in other ways as well. She has provided some of them with small loans to help them purchase their own manual machines. With this money, many of the tailors have been able to establish workshops in their own homes, working as “group leaders” for orders from Art Atlas, also employing as many as thirty people, and some selling directly to retailers themselves. Thus, Jessica is not only an entrepreneur herself, but has also enabled many impoverished villagers to sustain their livelihoods independently through micro-enterprises.

Training, Employment, and Production

Although work is tight, Art Atlas’ training and employment program has improved over the years and is now a smooth operation. The first hand knitting classes were held in communal spaces that were accessible to anyone living in the surrounding area who expressed interest in Art Atlas. For example, Jessica located some of her first programs in a school building in Pampa Cañahuas and a communal kitchen in one of Arequipa’s unofficial settlements. She also hired a professional seamstress to teach the trainees the processes and skills to make and assemble hand knitted garments.

Apart from providing group training sessions, Jessica also provides each group of artisans with a handbook of step-by-step instructions and details of how to knit each stitch and assemble each garment. However, some of these artisans come from extremely limited backgrounds—many have suffered from malnutrition and have not received a formal education. Consequently, some of her artisans are illiterate and limited in the skills they can acquire. These workers struggle more with the training process and require more initial investment, personal guidance, and tutelage to reach an acceptable skill level. Many are provided with hand drawings in place of written guidebooks to help them through each order.

Although most of the garments are hand made by the artisans, a tremendous amount of work is required on-site at Art Atlas—both pre- and post-production—to ensure that the village seamstresses create garments that meet the fashion and quality standards of Art Atlas’ diverse clientele. Art Atlas created a defined process through which all orders must be handled. As the sales manager, Jessica is the first point of contact and is responsible for delivering each client’s specific requirements. For example, the American brands that entrust their production to Art Atlas distinguish themselves as organic, fair-trade and high-end fashion. Once an order is received, Jessica records its details—organic threads and tints, color, and design—to create a unique description card that will accompany the order through the entire production cycle. This strict labeling system facilitates coherent control over each order by various quality control managers. As the order advances through the cycle—knitting, initial control, washing, pressing, linking, final control, labeling and packaging—the card is updated accordingly. Jessica has recently converted this labeling into a computerized bar-code system under the guidance of operations consultants.

Before production can begin, Jessica and the Art Atlas designers must have a prototype of each garment approved by the client. Then the 45-day production process begins with an initial training session for a group of artisans on how to produce the garment. Art Atlas orders most of its fabrics from Jessica’s former employer, Michell, and supplies the artisans with the appropriate material for each order. Art Atlas never takes a back seat during production. Not only are the garments under constant surveillance while they are being made, but they are re-evaluated by at least two other quality control managers before they are packed and shipped. Quality control visits take place routinely while production is off-site, checking for any major errors in the design of the piece or the production of the stitch.

After the knitting is complete, trained employees thoroughly inspect each piece, looking for small snags and correcting any blemishes by hand before the knit is washed or assembled. Assembling the garments—e.g. connecting the sleeves, body, and hood of a sweater—is the next step and is usually done by special machines on-site, although some tailors may use the off-site machines they have purchased. Jessica does not allow the washing and treating processes to occur off-site for two main reasons: first, to ensure the quality, the softness of the garment is achieved during the washing process and must follow a very precise process that varies depending on both the quality of yarn and whether it is organic; second, the methods also require a great deal of attention; if done poorly, they can jeopardize the integrity of and investment in an entire batch of garments.

Sustainability

Jessica has expanded Art Atlas’ services in an attempt to retain clients and try to ensure her employees have work throughout the year. She constantly tries to identify how she can incorporate her clients’ many needs into her business. Although her company sells to some well-known brand labels, that provide their own designs, Art Atlas has its own designers for buyers who may be interested in selling high-quality, organic, or fair-trade items but do not wish to invest time or resources in producing their own designs. The company also has clients who occupy different positions along the spectrum, who bring some of their own ideas but also look to the Art Atlas team for inspiration. Jessica also offers her clients the option to outsource photography and catalogue production. Since 2011 she has also offered an Art Atlas collection called “Anntarah,” available from an online store as well as boutiques in Peru. She hopes this will smooth the seasonal ordering trends and also provide an opportunity to build a customer base of end-consumers who will be loyal to her brand and mission.

As the sales manager and lifeblood of Art Atlas, Jessica works primarily to ensure and expand sales, particularly for handmade pieces. She is constantly negotiating on behalf of her workers and often has to make major concessions in order to preserve her social goals. Because Art Atlas is a fair-trade enterprise, the commitment is to pay always salaries of at least 200 soles (US$75) above the legal minimum of 750 soles (US$280) per month. Moreover, the employees’ total yearly remuneration must amount to at least 14 months’ salary.

Jessica always discusses wages with her artisans to be sure that each project appropriately rewards the labor it demands. Fair wages mean higher prices, especially when compared to the cost of production in East and Southeast Asia. This usually does not pose a problem for Jessica’s French clients, nor for some of her American clients, who are conscious of fair-employment practices and are thus willing to pay a premium to promote workers’ rights. Nonetheless, for some, mostly American companies, high prices pose an obstacle; and Jessica often reduces or eliminates Art Atlas profit margins, forwarding all the earnings as workers’ wages. Jessica cannot jeopardize her relationship with her American clients, who make up an important percentage of her business; and although their price demands threaten Art Atlas’ well-being, their orders are ultimately responsible for more than half of the workers’ time.

Although Art Atlas’ profits seem secondary, the company must take care of the administrative, accounting, and other on-site personnel it employs in addition to the seamstresses. Moreover, savings enable exactly the kind of small lending and advances that help facilitate economic advancement and flexibility for the workers. Jessica has never had a problem with loan repayment or untrustworthy staff. Rather, she and her employees have a shared faith in one another. What stands out about Jessica’s model is the diverse investment she makes in her people. First, because she both funds their training and “recycles” their skills into her business, she has personally invested in their ability to perform and will shepherd their productive capacity because it benefits her business as well. This is a fundamental difference between an organization that trains but places its program graduates in external companies: In such an employment assistance model, the partner firm absorbing new labor has no true incentive to help the new employee adjust to and succeed in his or her new position.

Second, Jessica’s interest and involvement in her workers’ lives creates personal relationships that are not factored in to the accounting and the invoices. Jessica offers loans, advances, flexible work hours, and parental leave, not for the sake of profits but because she genuinely cares about her employees’ well-being. She personally knows each individual tailor she employs and takes active responsibility for his or her happiness. Jessica has never had a problem with workers defaulting on loans or carelessly producing garments. Because she recruits from communities where previous employment history is sparse, she relies on her workers to evaluate people in the community for inclusion in the Art Atlas family. Art Atlas’ employees value their relationships with the firm. Thus, they recommend good workers and treat their jobs with the utmost respect. This investment in social capital is unique to social enterprises. Whereas traditional for-profit ventures can rely on résumés and swift employee turnover to mitigate the risk of uncertainty with new hires, Jessica does not want to jeopardize the quality of her production or the empowerment she provides along with the paycheck.

Beyond Business

Not surprisingly, Jessica has tried to innovate to share Art Atlas’ benefits with as many people as possible. It quickly came to her attention that knitting sweaters produces a great deal of scrap fabric. She saw the scraps as an opportunity and found a new way to keep her seamstresses’ needles busy: From the leftover fabric they began sewing, stuffing, and selling small dolls whose profits would be used entirely for charitable causes. Because one of Jessica’s priorities is advancing the quality and universality of education in Peru, she put the extra profits generated from the doll project toward supplying five underfunded schools in Pampa Cañahuas with basic school supplies, such as notebooks, pens, and crayons.

This is just the first of many charitable projects to come from Art Atlas. Once the business was firmly established, Jessica launched its sister, non-profit organization. Founded in 2003, the Art Atlas Foundation is independent of the business and provides Jessica with an avenue to donate Art Atlas’ profits to charitable causes. Although Art Atlas is a social enterprise, Jessica realizes that while skills training and employment can jump-start social mobility, some communities live in dire conditions and need immediate relief. She cites one specific experience that changed her life and confirmed her belief in charity. It was a bitter cold day when she traveled with her family to Pampa Cañahuas to recruit workers. She was shocked by the disparity in living conditions: While she and her children were bundled from head to toe, she saw children running around without jackets or shoes and facing the biting wind so unprotected that their cheeks were dry and bleeding. Jessica and her husband still hold the face of one particular boy in their memory and retain this image as her and her foundation’s motivation. Since its inception in 2003, the foundation has carried out various campaigns, from providing medical services to building barns for small farmers to protect their alpaca during the bitterly cold winters.

Jessica has managed to bring about more than isolated change: Recently, the Art Atlas Foundation secured a partnership with the municipality of Arequipa, with the government sharing in funding the foundation and creating awareness of this community’s need. Ideally, Jessica would like to devote more of her time to the foundation. However, the demands of running her own business occupy most of her time. In 2009 she had to abandon her 5-year plan to establish a nursery or daycare center for working mothers because she simply did not have the time to dedicate to the fundraising and development necessary to get the project off the ground. Because she draws a clear distinction between Art Atlas’ clients and the foundation’s funders—she does not try to involve her clients in the foundation’s non-profit work, regardless of whether they espouse the same social vision as Art Atlas—this compounds the problem of limited resources and demands that she devote time and energy to two distinct groups.

Jessica also serves as an advocate for women and small business owners in the political sphere. While she finds it frustrating that larger firms, with greater leverage, do not provide the same sort of political or social initiatives, she has worked enthusiastically to help those involved in every step of garment production, from the alpaca farmers to the seamstresses. She currently serves as director of the Chamber of Commerce in Arequipa and was president of the Small Business Owners Association, and is actually president of the AMEP Arequipa (Asociation of Women Entrepreneurs). Jessica would like to see more access to finance for women entrepreneurs, social enterprises, and social services in Peru, and believes the government should encourage and incentivize these activities.

In the meantime, Jessica organizes programs and services to connect unemployed women with some of the resources they need to empower their lives. For example, she sponsors a psychologist to visit Art Atlas three times each year to conduct motivational lectures focusing on the emotional challenges of rising out of poverty. She notes that many lower-class Peruvian families are trapped by unjust power relations between men and women: although it is mostly the women who labor and earn wages, many husbands snatch up their money and spend the family’s financial resources on alcohol. What is more, Jessica sees many women who have been abused and abandoned by their husbands and are complacent about this treatment, covering their physical and emotional bruises with stories and excuses. Thus, this access to a professional counselor can be a tremendous resource for working women. Like Jessica, this psychologist recognizes the importance of providing aid to those in need and offers an extra service at no cost to the women who attend her talks by making herself available by telephone or e-mail in the event that any of the women need guidance or support.

Jessica has effectively created a business around programs for economic and social advancement. However, Art Atlas’ social bottom line has at times taken a toll on its business operations. How do Jessica’s social and profit goals interact with and inhibit each other? The challenges of a double bottom line are not limited simply to Jessica’s business model: As we have seen, she relies on expensive foreign markets to finance fair wages. What might this strategy imply for future business development? How can Art Atlas and other social enterprises create a demand for social value? What types of practices should social enterprises consider when trying to maximize their social impact? Art Atlas is clearly unique in its investment in and dedication to its employees. This care and consideration have, in essence, been reinvested—through loan repayments, productivity, and referrals—thus increasing Art Atlas’ efficiency. Consider how Art Atlas might be different if it had more than one person in Jessica’s role: would it be possible for the company to serve an even greater community if there were two or three sales managers equally as devoted to employee wellbeing? Is this model expandable or replicable?