JD Juana Díaz

“My work is an effort to defend of modes of production that regard the people involved as human beings.”

Guided by a purpose that responds more to textile art than design, Juana Díaz and her professional trajectory reflect a critical vision of clothing conceived as a form of creative expression as well as political activism. The JD brand emerged as a strategy for adaptation to the market, though it is also Juana’s most effective tool for challenging it. A pioneer of textile recycling in Chile, she pushes creativity to its limits in order to produce work with limited resources, compromising neither quality nor the ethical commitment to work on a sustainable, human scale.

Juana’s creations stand out from others on the independent fashion circuit due to their transgressive aesthetic, their original construction techniques, and the handcrafted quality of their fabrication. But her approach to style and fashion also happens to be the only one in the local milieu that openly articulates a political-social stance and that coherently integrates references from fields as far-flung as poetry, visual arts and international current events. Her garments are timeless in terms of form, and yet with each stitch that penetrates them she also expresses her awareness of the age she lives in.