Colombian Women Ex-Combatants Create Ixora Fashion Brand Amid Security Challenges

Katerine Avella is a former combatant in Colombia’s decades-long civil war, a peace signatory and a community leader. After the guns fell silent, she created the fashion brand Ixora but, with violence returning to the region, Ms. Avella is now focusing on trying to keep the project afloat in the face of new challenges. Avella set herself to work at a small sewing workshop in Catatumbo, Colombia, one of the dividends of the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian Government and FARC rebels, designed to help reintegrate former combatants, and heal the wounds of the conflict. Like many former fighters, she was looking for a way to rebuild her life after the war, and the workshop served as a space for training, care and empowerment for women that would contribute to preventing gender-based violence – a place where they could learn a trade, support each other and regain confidence in the midst of a territory marked by violence. Along with several other women, Ms. Avella set up Stitches for Peace, which began making sweatshirts, T-shirts and uniforms. But in 2021 the project took an unexpected turn towards high fashion. At an initiative led by the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, she met Lina Garcés, an economist trained at the Externado University and the founder of a second-hand clothing boutique called Lina's Closet, in Cúcuta.  Ms. Garcés used to say that her shop sold “second-chance clothes,” a phrase that would soon take on a new meaning. Garcés agreed to participate, although not without reservations. Her personal history was marked by the armed conflict, and her family had been victims of a kidnapping, which left painful memories. However, she decided to travel to Caño Indio, in the middle of the Catatumbo jungle, where she found a place very different from the fashion world in which she worked: prefabricated accommodations, zinc roofs, unpaved roads and communal bathrooms. But she also found something she did not expect: talent. “The women had an impressive ability,” she recalls. “The one who sewed did it with incredible precision; the one who cut had the pulse of a professional.” Many had learned to handle needle and thread during the war, mending uniforms or boots. Now that knowledge wove another story.  For fifteen days they worked intensely on designs, sizing and finishes. From those days was born the idea of creating wraparound skirts with prints inspired by the Ixora flower, a plant that blooms all year round and symbolizes resistance and perseverance in Catatumbo. As a result of all the workshops, the brand 'Ixora, inclusive and autonomous' was born. By the end of 2021, they already had a first collection, which they presented at the Julio Pérez library in Cúcuta. The parade brought together victims of the conflict and peace signatories on the same catwalk.  Sometime later, during a discussion at the Cúcuta Book Fair, where they were invited to tell their story, Ms. Garcés told her family history for the first time before the public. Garcés said in front of the audience: “For me, today they are sensitive women, who want to move forward.

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