A Walk in the Forest
Welcome to the series
"Clothing as Celebration"
Stories about powerful women with style and substance.
Eulalia Piedrahita
“Clothing is a celebration. A celebration of our physical body, as it carries us day by day throughout our lifetime. A celebration of our unique spirits, projecting our innermost facets for the rest of the world to discover and nurturing them when we need to turn inward”
-Eileen Ray
Eulalia Piedrahita is a style icon with many stories to tell. She recently left the city and moved to the countryside near Medellín. Welcome to her world!
1. What does it mean to turn 60?
Age has its charms, I feel strong and free, you lose things and win others. It is a relevant age!
2. What does it mean to embrace rural life?
Being in the countryside has been vital to my experience, leaving the city to embrace the countryside ... almost a contemporary ritual of passage, calming down, being able to connect with other more essential matters, creating rituals in everyday life, starting over. I think we are always leaving something to start a new cycle.
3. What do you miss about youth?
The body, the skin, the smell of youth… that sense of novelty that is everywhere and sort of expresses itself through every pore.
4. What surprised you about aging?
I was surprised that it feels very good, it is almost wonderful to let go, to be able to access an unknown interior space that I did not know before…, to stop being a certain way to become another, a lighter version?
5. Gray hair? Wrinkles?
I am proud of my gray hair and my wrinkles. They are here to stay. They are part of my answer and my embodiment of this new phase.
6. You are a great walker. Let's talk about it.
To walk is to know in a different way, to embrace the world in a “human” scale tailored to your size and proportion which makes you assume your smallness. When walking I hear the sounds, the rumors of the forest and get a real sense of place where I can connect the place to its particular birds, the landscape and the plants.
I particularly enjoy walking alone in the mountains because it is there that I feel truly at the mercy of the elements as if in a state of primitive solitude and with the possibility of learning new things.
7. Rural life. What is a day in the country like?
Quiet, slow….we drink coffee, walk with the dogs, get to know the nearby towns and their local characters, we love greenhouses and everything related to gardening, we read, we watch movies and the rain.
8. What is fashion for you at this moment in life?
I have always felt fashion as a communication channel, now my priority is comfort, meaningful comfort, which is very much linked to my current moment. I am treasuring the colors and materials associated with the earth made in simple patterns that can be very sophisticated and refined.
I am into natural materials that have a history, pieces that float or that are far from the body seem interesting to me. I do not want anything that can be traced to any brand. My skin has become very delicate, I am not interested in mistreating it with a seam or a label.
The future of mud silk rests with enlightened people who understand the limited resources of our planet, appreciate the enchanting qualities of this rare cloth and value handcrafted traditions. A symbol of resilience, sustainability, and poetry to be worn and treasured, mud silk offers living proof that tradition is timeless.