Dressed as a country

January 9, 2020

If instead of the Invasor newspaper, this article were from a gossip magazine, the story would go something like this: "Cuba's First Lady, Lis Cuesta Peraza, attended the inauguration of Argentine President Alberto Fernández wearing a black elasticized muslin dress with twill sleeves stamped with floral motifs, signed by the prestigious fashion house Guayza".

But this is not the society page coverage of a political event, but rather a story of friendship that began with clothing, yes, but has transcended time, distance, and protocol. It began in Holguín in 2002, when Lis Cuesta Peraza, who is not even today a First Lady because such nomenclature is not used in Cuba, was just beginning to fall in love with Díaz, as those close to Cuban President Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez still call him today.

Back then Guayza was barely a project with the smell of "eggshell" and only the desire to create would have justified the audacity of, without even having produced a complete collection, presenting itself at one of the meccas of Cuban craftsmanship and fashion: Iberoarte.

Frank Pérez Perdomo cannot recall that madness without first remembering how Esperanza Martínez Corella gave wings to the idea of designing clothes, when he was still staff at the Ceramic Workshop that she had created in the city. And how she connected him with Maribel Torres Torres, who would become the other half of Guayza. It was Esperanza, moreover, who taught him to draw, welcomed him into her home, and in the early morning hours, prepared him jars of tea, essential fuel for putting on paper the whirlwind of fabrics, threads, and cuts inside his head. An entire inner world that, from then on, Frank began to let out with total freedom.

In fact, Maribel was even braver than he was. She blindly trusted that a complete unknown in the Avileño fashion world would have enough good and new ideas to impress. "Design", she told him, and she bet her reputation, her resources, and her time on a "we'll see". And if such a demonstration of confidence had not been enough, she later said yes when Frank proposed, even without finishing the collection, to present it at Iberoarte.

In little more than a year Iberoarte had become a craftsmanship and fashion event that no creator in the country wanted to miss. The echoes of the inaugural edition in 2001 had crossed the borders of Holguín and it was totally logical that a young designer, with "hunger" for the runway, would be hypnotized by the glass of such an important showcase. They went there with 172 pieces from that mythical fire-on-canvas collection and Esperanza's paintings on fabric, and the jury, which included among others the great Mercy Nodarse, "Award for the best fashion collection at the 1st. Biennial of Design in Saint-Etienne (France)", could only agree that Guayza was something else.

Lis Cuesta thought the same, at that time Director of the Provincial Book Center in Holguín, who did not miss the opportunity to meet the revelation of that year. For this reason, this is not the society page gossip about knowing the signature behind a dress, a jacket, or a guayabera, but rather a more or less chronological account of a friendship and the manifest intention to elevate Cuban fashion to the highest level.

Following that award, the Avileño fashion group became a regular guest at the Iberoamerican Craftsmanship Fair and the relationships of affection and respect were reciprocated. Of course, in those days there was no Facebook and no one, except those closest to them, knew where the clothes that Díaz-Canel and Lis Cuesta wore came from.