LIMA (AP) — the skilful hands of a group of former pickpockets, counterfeiters, assassins and drug traffickers imprisoned in the most populous prison in Peru are now engaged in cutting, remeshing and sealing with extreme care the fine cotton garments sold by intern ET and have been acquired by singers such as the American Pharrell Williams or the Colombian Maluma.La characteristic of the brand Pietà-“piety” in Italian and whose logo consists of four vertical stripes and a horizontal like those drawn by some prisoners to To count their days of confinement-is that it is made up of prisoners and inmates in Peru. Its creator, French designer and entrepreneur Thomas Jacob-a 32-year-old slim blond-is interested in the manual skills of prisoners, not in their past. ” It’s people who are animated to work, hence the crime for which they are morally I don’t care, “he told The Associated Press in the office where he manages his signature and dedicates hours to thinking about his new and ironical phrases inspired by his conversations with the prisoners : “Notre Dame de la Haine”-in French “Our Lady of Hate”-, “Mana Imatapas manchakuq warmi”-in Quechua, “Woman who is not frightened with anything”-or “live as if you’re going to die, because you’re going to die”.
Until 2012 Jacob worked from Peru sending fabrics for the workshops of the fashion house Chanel when he happened to attend a play based on the novel “Our Lady of Paris” by Victor Hugo in a Lima prison. Several prisoners told him that in prison there were sewing machines, which had notions of sewing and that they had no job. Thus arose the idea of creating the company that now has sold about 200,000 garments and produces 1,000 per week. The work is not simple. Several of the 30 sewers prisoners leave the group every semester because they are released, moved to other prisons or willingly leave the trade to which they sometimes devote up to 11 hours a day. Another challenge is the almost nil experience in the field of clothing or his scant concern for the finishing of garments, an obsession of Jacob. Except for that, the relationship with the prison workers is the same as in any other workshop in the city. Prisoners also benefit because they earn money for their work and reduce one day in prison for every five workers, according to Peruvian law. Being busy also helps prevent the mind from accumulating worries or fatalistic thoughts.
When I’m free “I want to get ahead and form my company,” said during a break Luis Casimiro, a 22-year-old prisoner for aggravated robbery who sews in the workshop of San Pedro Prison, the most populous in Peru.
Jacob’s project is not the only one in the prisons of Peru. Despite high levels of overcrowding, like most prisons in the third world, Peruvian prisons have developed programs similar to Jacob’s in the last decade. The prison agency calculated up to 2018 that 117 entrepreneurs, most of the textile sector, have signed agreements with the prisons to give paid work to the prisoners. Jacob said his project is based on the empathy awakened by men and women locked in a country with extreme inequalities, but does not forget that in the end Pietà is a business. You have to pay for fabrics, personnel, transportation, logistics, water, light, rental shops and a long list of issues that are only solved with money. “If it were not profitable, do not continue… The idea is to continue developing our market in Europe and the United States, “he said.
