Carla Fernández is the founder of her eponymous fashion Carla Fernández fashion house based in Mexico City. She works at the forefront of ethical fashion globally, documenting and preserving the rich textile heritage of her country's indigenous and mestizo communities. Carla has developed a unique pedagogy where participants to their workshops can translate their ideas into designs even in those places where only indigenous languages are spoken.

Her designs are created in productive and creative collaboration with more than 180 weavers, embroiderers, wood carvers, and dyers from 16 states of the Mexican Republic who use traditional techniques and processes that lead to contemporary fashion.

The work she has done in collaboration with Mexican artisans has been exhibited individually in museums such as Denver Art Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston, Museo Jumex and Centro Cultural España in CDMX, Heath Ceramics in San Francisco, RISD Museum in Rhode Island, Think Twice at the SCAD Museum in Savannah, among others. Adding more than 20 collective exhibitions, of which Woman in Fashion stands out at the Peabody Essex Museum, Landscapes of Design, Women at the Heart of Domaine de Boisbuchet in Fracc Centre-Val de Loire, La Quema at the Anahuacalli Museum, among others. She was also part of the 2022 edition of Nomadic Nights at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris.

Her ethical fashion project has won awards such as Design Visionary 2018 awarded by Design Miami, Prince Claus Fund 2013, Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year by the British Council and was nominated for Beazley Designs of the Year 2019; she is a member of the Ashoka network of social entrepreneurs. Likewise, the brand is certified for being socially responsible by B Corp.

She has published three individual books: Taller Flora, The Barefoot Designer: A Handbook, and Manifesto of Fashion as Resistance.

Photo header: Ben Lamberty