Project Pietà

Pietà is a fashion label born in the prisons of Lima, Latin America. An impertinent and irreverent project, independent and spontaneous. Far from the marketing diktat, it offers an alternate conception of fashion. This project, influenced by the counter-cultures, refuses to submit to the social norms of a society devoted to the mass consumption. No logo, a black empty tag and no standard sizes. The important is to make cool stuff.

The project is born in a prison of Lima and successfully developed in others prisons. The collections are entirely produced in prisons without any external help. Even the models come from here. In this way it allows inmates, often left to their own devices, to independently generate an income and develop their skills allowing for a faster rehabilitation. Each day of work decreases the prisoner’s sentence by a full day.

Photos by Alexander Neumann.

All the Pietà clothes are created in the fashioning, knitting, and leather workshops of the different prisons where the prisoners produce, with passion and pride, garments edition, and signed by the craftsman who made it. Pietà uses natural, ecological and recycled materials, working the most noble and rarest fibers on Earth such as alpaca, cashmere, pima cotton or silk. Garments are composed of simple and minimalist cuts, from hard life inspiration for everyday life, with a story emerging behind every piece.

This project was named Pietà after the chef d’oeuvre of Michelangelo. A piece depicting a difficult scene of accepting the Divine will, without any lamentation or pain. It is about sobriety and dignity. This is the state of mind of Pietà: in spite of the difficulties and prejudice, they don’t give up. They demonstrate good work, humility and simplicity while being full of hope for the future. Finally the Pietà is the last step before the Resurrection, and a new rebirth.

www.projectpieta.com