In Bolivia’s capital city La Paz, indigenous women known as cholas have long been stigmatized for wearing their traditional clothes: bowler hats, handmade macramé shawls, tailored blouses, layered pollera skirts, and lots of elaborate jewelry.

But for the past 11 years, fashion designer Eliana Paco Paredes has been chipping away at that stigma with her line of chola clothing—which she debuted at New York City’s Fashion Week last week. That’s a big deal for a type of clothing that has historically been disparaged in Bolivia because it was worn by poor, indigenous women. For a long time, many indigenous women couldn’t wear chola clothing in certain professions.

Bringing indigenous designs to New York is a huge step for Paco Paredes, though not the first time her clothing has received international recognition. In 2012, she designed a shawl for Spain’s Queen Sofia.

But Paco Paredes’s Fashion Week show is also an important moment for indigenous cholas. Until recently, these women “could be refused entry to certain restaurants, taxis and even some public buses,” writes Paula Dear for BBC News. Such an international spotlight on Paco Paredes’s designs will hopefully increase the acceptance of indigenous women and their culture in Bolivia.

La Paz’s mayor, Luis Revilla, wrote in an email that his city’s response to Paco Paredes’s Fashion Week debut has been a feeling of pride. He hopes that “her designs, which reflect the identity of local woman from La Paz, generate a trend in the global fashion industry,” he says.

“I also hope that in time, people from different geographies of the planet begin to use some of the elements that make the dress of chola,” he says.

Fresh off her Fashion Week debut, Paco Paredes spoke with National Geographic about her clothing and how opportunities for cholas are changing.

What is your approach to your designs?

What we want to show on this runway is the outfits’ sophistication. But the thing I don’t want to lose, that I always want to preserve, is the fundamental essence of our clothing. Because what we want, in some way, is to show the world that these outfits are beautiful, that they can be worn in La Paz by a chola, but they can also be worn by you, by someone from Spain, by a woman from Asia; that these women can fall in love with the pollera, the hat, the macramé shawl combined with an evening gown. These are the outfits we want to launch.

Do you think it's important that you, as a chola, came to Fashion Week in New York?

Of course! I think that it's very important because to have a runway of this international magnitude, with designers of this caliber, with international models, with a completely professional atmosphere, fills me with pride. And it's very important because of the fact that people can see my culture.

Who buys your clothing?

I have a store in La Paz, a national store. Here in La Paz, in Bolivia, this clothing is doing very well, because it's what many women wear day to day.

At a national level I can tell you we have the pleasure to work with many regions: Oruro, Potosí, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba. At an international level, we dress many people in Peru, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and some products we make go to Spain, Italy. So through this we want to open an international market with sophisticated outfits that are Eliana Paco designs.

We're getting people to learn about what this clothing is at another level, and many women outside of Bolivia can and want to wear these outfits. They've fallen in love with these designs that they can say come from La Paz, Bolivia.

How are opportunities changing for cholas in La Paz?

It's definitely a revolution that's been going on for about 10 years, because the cholas paceñas [cholas from La Paz] have made their way into different areas—social, business, economic, political. And look at this fashion event, where nobody could've imagined that suddenly so many chola designs are on the runway with some of the most famous designers, like Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, where they have lines of different types of designs at an international level.

The chola paceña has been growing in all of these aspects. And for us, this is very important because now being chola comes from a lot of pride—a lot of pride and security and satisfaction.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Ann Marie Soulier (ne´e Hyland) passed away peacefully at her home in Wolcott on Saturday, Nov. 28th, surrounded by loving members of her family. She was 86. The second daughter of the late Frank and Delena Hyland, and sister of the late James and William Hyland, Ann is survived by her two sisters, Elizabeth Parenti and Mary Dudzinski, as well as her brother-in-law, Harry Dudzinski, and sisters-in-law, Gloria and Evelyn Hyland, all of Bristol. She also leaves behind her beloved children: Marie Barrett and her husband, Mike, James Soulier and his wife, Beth, Elizabeth Thisdale and her husband, Joe, Carol Roy and her husband, Doug, Leona Chamberlain and her husband, Dave, and Mario Vitale. Ann was affectionately known as "Nanny" to her 14 grandchildren: Paul, Avery, Shane, Kylie, Matthew, Bobby, Cory, Christopher, Marty, Todd, Michael, Tyler, Michelle, and Jimmy; and to her beloved 14 great-grandchildren: She also has many surviving cousins, nieces, nephews, in-laws and friends whom she loved dearly. The family would like to extend their gratitude to her special caregivers, Alicia and Eliana, who made a difference in the quality of her life and became like family members to her. Ann had an impactful presence. She loved Jesus, family vacations at Hampton Beach and Black Point, coffee, music, painting, doll-collecting, and her best friend of over 80 years, Nancy (Nan). She retired in 1999 from Superior Electric, where she was a cherished coworker for nearly 30 years. As mechanically adept as she was in the workplace, Ann was equally adept in making her house a home. She ran a tight ship during those years doubling as a homemaker, where she kept her loved ones well-fed, raising them to be resilient and to always have a sense of humor and a love of family. She believed in prayer and loved her son Mario's poetry. She also loved videography and was known to document family events using a camcorder starting in the 1980s. Always with a keen eye to see one step ahead, she kept copies of these moments on VHS for all of her loved ones to watch in the years to come. She will be sorely missed here on earth as she joins her parents, her brothers, and her grandson, Shane, in heaven. Friends and family are invited to attend a Mass of Christian Burial for Ann on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020, at 10 a.m. directly at St. Matthew's Church in Forestville. Burial will immediately follow at St. Joseph Cemetery in Plainville. There will be no calling hours. The family also plans on having a celebration of life ceremony for Ann sometime in the summer of 2021. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made in Ann's honor to the Wolcott Volunteer Ambulance Association, 48 Todd Road, Wolcott, CT 06716. To leave an online message of condolence, share a memory or a photo, visit Ann's memorial
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About “AKA "Ann Marie Soulier", Mario Vitale's Mom !”

So many words I have written
of you, and most unfair
and unflattering, though not all
untrue. I know well what you
have not heard me say, I have stopped
asking what- instead, I ask how.

How can I tell you, then?
Though my words sing, sometimes, I shy
from the daunting task of trying
to show you as I see you,
completely, and not just facets
that place hurtful words in my mouth.
How can I show you the good
as well as the bad, the soothing
as well as the painful?

Do I tell you of the first person
I trusted completely, the one I learned
was better than she thought and stronger
than all else? Do I tell you of the only person
I felt safe around for years? Can I show
how much strength and honesty
you have taught me, without questioning
the source of everything
I have grown into?

Do I show you through your example, when
I called you, needing escape, knowing
I could run to you, I was always right?
How even when you could not carry
your own burdens, you tried to lift
mine, as well?

Do I try to explain
the unexplainable, the way our minds
connect, the way our laughter
makes everything better, even if only
for a minute, the way we will fight
with each other, but always for
the other?

Can I tell you of how I
can’t find words to describe you, how
when copying your words
to my notebook I spent half an hour
and five pages because my handwriting
was never good enough for any
of your prose, how sometimes I
am still surprised you
are my friend?

Know, please, that I do not write
of the good, because there is far
too much of it. I am a coward, afraid
of cheapening or making cliché
from what I could not do without. When I tried to think
of what would happen, should this
cease to exist, in order to ascertain, to gauge
how essential it is, my chest twinged
and I fell silent.

I have written to you
of pain, and silences,
of walls, and abysses,
of blood, and fear, and anger.
And though my unwritten words
are never enough, know
that I sing of relief, and communication,
of bridges, and filled emptinesses,
of healing, and happiness, and love
and clichéd poetry. Know
though at times I may not want to, though
my song is at times bitter and painful, though
sometimes my song is not heard at all,
the underlying notes are always happy
and they are of you and for you and it was you
who taught me to sing them.

I have this fascination
With your names
The way they sound
In my head and the
Way they form on
My lips and the way
They look on the page
And the way they look
On the screen, I find
A curious pleasure
In seeing your names
Written down next
To mine, said adjoining
Mine, a GefenElianaBinyaminSivanBoazRachelle
Thing. Or a GefenSivanRachelleBoazBinyaminEliana
Or GefenBoazSivanElianaRachelleBinyamin
Or a... I will never
Be satisfied, and always
Fight myself internally
For which name goes
Where, I feel guilty
Almost, about those placed most
Far away
All your names
Strike the same
Spark in my brain when I see them
My eyes shift
To them almost
Automatically, let us
Just be a
                        Rachelle Boaz
                    Eliana Gefen Sivan
                             Binyamin
Thing.