The population of Nova Resende has a strong Italian immigrant influence. The town is at 1.200m altitude, ideal for growing coffee, where one also finds a great deal of good quality straw. Recently, a government study suggested crafts using local straw as a good source for work and activities. The study was conducted to find means for extra occupation and income for unemployed people in an area where the option was the coffee picking season that lasts only four months of the year. When I arrived in Nova Resende, invited by the Mayor Mr. Mauro Martins, I found some very special people willing to learn how to work with the straw. However, besides learning how to weave, they also needed guidance for styling and marketing. Every time I came to town, the Mayor would gather people who wanted to learn how to make straw hand bags. That's how we started. The result was good and we were so successful that within a few months we were selling handbags to sophisticated shops in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo like Daslu and Blue Man. I also trained the inmates of the local jail with a very good result. They work while they are in jail and they are offered the opportunity of a job when they are free. We began working with straw and soon I introduced leather and other materials. We worked hard and now we are very proud to be producing refined and sophisticated fashion accessories sold arround the world.
In 2007, with the help of a partner, Pedro Coimbra, I created a new group of artisans in Muzambinho, a very charming city near Nova Resende where I am living now.That's where we produce the rugs in straw, rubber and leather.

[03/03/2006] Brazilian artisan makes reed handbags The businesswoman Cecilia Machado started using taboa - a kind of reed very common in the interior of Brazil that grows by rivers - to produce accessories, in 2003. The experience worked out so well that, eight months after beginning the activities, she was already selling the handbags to renowned boutiques in the country. This month Cecília is going to ship handbags to England . Cláudia Abreu São Paulo - Cecilia Machado has the gift of creativity. She looks at simple materials and promptly imagines an accessory. It was like that with the taboa , plant more than 2-metres long that grows abundantly in the swamps in the countryside of the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais . The weed, to which nobody in the region paid much attention, was quickly used by Cecilia to make purses. It also became an inseparable partner to leather. The result: colourful and refined pieces that this year will venture abroad, when the artist-businesswoman will ship handbags to a chain of stores in England . Cecilia's story with Brazilian handicraft started some years ago, when she was a sales supervisor in a handbag factory in São Paulo . However, it gained strength in 2003, when she decided to look for an alternative to the imports Brazilian stores were making of straw handbags manufactured in Indonesia and China . She looked through many states in the country seeking workforce and raw material to make the pieces she had in mind. She was nearly giving up when she received a call from the mayor of the small city of Nova Resende , in the south of the state of Minas Gerais . She found the work force and started her project.

"The beginning wasn't easy," says Cecilia. "In spite of having people willing to work and the taboa available, the people didn't know how to weave the reed, much less how to make handbags," she adds. The region is a coffee producer, therefore the workers were trained in taking care of the crops and the fruit's harvest. But Cecilia didn't give up. She trained those who wanted to learn, she called artisans from other states to teach the locals and set up a group. To gain the trust of the locals, she started buying their entire production, even when it didn't meet her expectations. Currently 40 artisans work with Cecilia . The production - in general - is of 2.000 handbags per month.

As the material was new, the entrepreneur also had to solve technical problems. "We had to figure out the drying period, the ideal paint," she explains. After harvested, for example, the taboa takes between seven to ten days drying. Only after this period is it ready to be worked. Cecilia also sought for a solution for a typical problem in reed purses: the mouth larger than the bottom. It was made like this so that the piece didn't tear when removed from the mould. "I made a series of tests and found out I could use balloons as moulds, and then just empty them to remove the bag. Then the mouth will be of the size you like," she says.

Eight months later, after the main issues were solved and the first handbags ready to be shown to the market, Cecilia set off to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro . She managed to get important clients straight away. The success of the first undertaking gave wings to Cecilia's imagination. As well as reed, she started working with also with leather. "This way, I can have pieces also for the winter collection," explains Cecilia.

For this year, the novelty is a rubbery like material used a lot for bathroom rugs, which has a great variety of colours . The pieces are still being manufactured, but Cecilia liked the first results. The material is mixed with the reed, leather or used on its own. "I think it will be next summer's hit. There are many colours and many possibilities.

Another idea which Cecilia is pondering is to use crochet for the purses. "I discovered that the region is rich in crocheting houses, I plan on using this workforce too and integrate them in the production of the pieces," she tells. However, instead of thread, Cecilia wants to do crochet with leather. "I cut the material in very fine straps and gave it to the women, lets see what they'll be capable of doing," she explains.

Social

The work with the handbags also gained a social reason. Cecilia started counting on the work done by the inmates in the local jail. One of them works in artist's office, as a fixed employee, he earns a salary and, this way, reduces his sentence. But the main contribution to this city, Cecilia believes, is the income distribution. "I am bringing in new money, from São Paulo , Rio de Janeiro , and even from abroad, to a city that never thought it would be producing purses," she adds.

Contact Site: www.ceciliamachado.com.br