By Maya Lazzaro (Quechua, CS Staff)

I waited at the Milan airport, having just arrived myself. I had just gotten back from what I call the “Italian Ikea,” a department store known for selling DIY construction projects. I was there shopping for vendor support items—mirrors, clothing racks, S-hooks, easels, string, clothing pins, photo frames—anything we could lend to the artisans to set up at the Cultural Survival booth over the next four days, where we would be presenting and vending at the Terra Madre Salon de Gusto 2026 food conference. 

As I waited at the airport, I saw the cushmas emerge first: the long, cotton ponchos notable for their long stripes and natural-colored dye. Then I saw the green, red, and yellow feathers coming out of Lizeth’s hair. The three artists from ANARO and their translator were sitting on the bench, patiently waiting for me to greet them. They looked peaceful, not even tired, and most notably they had the biggest smiles—smiles that never left their faces, except for one moment, when one of the vendors, Luz Mery, got particularly emotional. It was her first time outside of her community in the Peruvian Amazon, and all the emotions flooded her at once during one of our last coffees together. Tears of happiness and gratitude, she said, for the most incredible trip of her life. 

The artists were fashion designer and artisans Lizeth Alvarez and Yeny Vargas, a mother and daughter from the Ashaninka community, Anaro. They represented ANARO, a clothing store run by more than 20 Ashaninka women. With them was Luz Mery Vargas from the Matsigenka community, representing Manitas Creativas, a store that also includes many different women artisans. She was accompanied by Jorge Ruelas Castillo, who has traveled with Matsigenka community members from the Amazon on international trips throughout the last decade. 

We arrived in Torino that same afternoon with suitcases full of traditional textiles and Indigenous art. The women carried clay paintings telling ancient stories from their territories and feather adornments from their home, the Amazon jungle. As Milan Fashion Week was going on around us, their presence was an act of beautiful and fashionable resistance. Seeing the coinciding of Milan Fashion Week and the Cultural Survival vendors arriving to showcase their work, I couldn’t help but reflect on how Indigenous fashion is the root, the essence, and the fundamental aspect of the fashion world, and yet it is also what’s so urgently missing.  

Milan hosted its first Fashion Week in 1958. Since then, the global fashion Industry has become a multitrillion-dollar sector, with global conglomerates now controlling many of the once family-run ateliers. What was once a respectable and artistic industry has become another sector of crude capitalism, a segue into fast fashion. One of the most criticized and controversial aspects of the global fashion industry is its massive environmental impact and the consequences of overconsumption, including exploitative labor practices..

We invited three Indigenous artists to participate in Cultural Survival’s inaugural Bazaar at Slow Food: Terra Madre. In addition to the women from ANARO and Manitas Creativas, we also hosted Philbert Begay, a Diné silversmith from Arizona who has been a Bazaar vendor for the last four years. These artists are not only the creators and minds behind beautiful, one-of-a-kind, handmade art; they are also the guardians of biodiversity, seedkeepers, and legacy carriers of a Peoples that still know how to coexist in harmony with nature and the biodiversity around us. That is why it is more important than ever to keep inviting Indigenous artists and people to these spaces and to provide opportunities for them to share and sell their art. Beyond the economic opportunities for the artists and their Indigenous communities, their participation offers us the opportunity to learn from their cultures. 

Thank you to Cultural Survival and Slow Food International for inviting us to share space with others at Terra Madre this year.