Stories In The Weave

You are invited into a private house in charming San Miguel Chapultepec, where the rooms reveals facets of Mexico’s textile traditions, conceived as lived context. This visit traces materials and fibers — cotton, wool, ixtle — alongside weaving techniques that predate the Spanish conquest and continue today, including the backstrap loom still used in weaving communities across Mexico. You explore natural dyes such as cochineal and indigo, along with regional patterns and histories. With your hosts at Onora, you examine how motifs, colors, and structures communicate community identity across Mexico — signaling origin, status, and cosmology. Textiles move beyond decoration into language and symbol — present in ceremonial dress, domestic life, and intergenerational knowledge. Some pieces require months of hand-weaving, their complexity visible only through close observation. The house becomes a setting in which contemporary design and ancestral weaving practices are placed in dialogue.

This is a curated visit that invites you to appreciate Mexican textiles and materials, and understand how they function within today’s lived environments. Lorena and her colleagues work in long-term, horizontal partnerships with a network of more than 725 artisans from 183 communities across 28 Mexican states — relationships built on respect, transparency and shared creativity. These collaborators are involved in design conversations and credited for their work — an approach that reframes craft as shared authorship rather than anonymous tradition. Rather than presenting textiles as aesthetic objects alone, the experience situates them within worldview and practice. Each piece is discussed in relation to the region that produced it — the dyes, fibers, techniques, and cultural meanings embedded in its structure. An artisanal drink and snack are offered during the visit, extending the hospitality of the house and reinforcing its character as a lived, working space rather than a showroom.

Lorena de la Piedra studied sociology and textile art and is a weaver herself, but what really defines her work is time spent alongside artisans. Since 2013, she has been working directly with makers, learning through shared processes, conversations, and everyday practice. After living in Oaxaca for eight years and working at the Textile Museum of Oaxaca, she developed a deep connection to the region’s textile traditions and the communities who sustain them. She invites visitors to slow down, get their hands involved, and experience craft from the inside. Whether through textiles or ceramics, the focus is on learning directly from artisans – understanding materials, techniques, and the stories behind them. Each experience is designed as a space for exchange, curiosity, and meaningful connection. Her colleagues at Onora collaborate with artisans from across the country to create contemporary textiles and objects, using traditional techniques that reflect their cultural identity.

There is nothing specific you need to bring. Should you wish to acquire one of the artisanal pieces available at Casa Onora, both cash and card are accepted - though there is no obligation to purchase.