Carla Fernandez Capa Charra Gris Calado Negro

The charro suit is a working uniform that became a formal one. The charro is the Mexican horseman, and charrería, the equestrian tradition around him, is old enough and specific enough to have been listed by UNESCO. The suit is wool, fitted, and it takes a particular kind of damage: a rope handled from the saddle drags across the same places every time, and wool loses that argument. So the maker laid leather over those places. And then, because a slab of hide on a good wool suit looks like a repair, the leather was cut through with a blade into openwork. That is calado de piel. The ornament and the reinforcement are the same object, and neither came first.

Carla Fernández took the technique off the suit and put it on a cape, which is the version most people will actually wear. This one is gray wool with the leather in black, so the openwork reads as shadow rather than as contrast, and you see the shape of the cutting before you see that it is leather at all. The cape is open at the front and hangs from the shoulder, which means the cut leather sits where it originally sat on the suit, up on the shoulder and running down, doing now for the look what it once did for the wear.

Why we selected it

Almost every garment that references a national tradition does it by printing something onto a blank. This one carries the tradition as a construction technique, made by the artisans who still do it, and the reference is in how the garment is built rather than in what is drawn on it. That is the whole reason we carry the house, in one piece.

The Charra Cape is one of the designs Carla Fernández’s own house treats as emblematic of it, and it is the piece where the leatherwork is most legible.

Materials and construction

Gray wool, with black hand-cut leather applied. We do not hold a fiber percentage, a lining, or a country of origin for this piece, and a wool figure is worth having on a garment at this weight.

Fit notes

Held at the shoulder and nowhere else, open at the front, and unfastened, so the whole silhouette is a question of where the wool falls. It goes over a narrow leg and over a fitted top; it does not go over another layer with volume in it. Expect it to settle slightly with wearing, as wool does when nothing is holding it in at the waist.

Styling

Over the Pantalón Tepehua in black, which is the sharpest version. Over the Vestido Rebozo Corto. With the Top Teco underneath. Gray and black will take almost anything, which is what makes this the most usable of the capas.

Care

Wool and applied leather in one garment, which means the safe treatment for the cloth is not the safe treatment for the piece. Do not wash it and do not steam the leather. Brush the wool, air it, keep it dry, and give anything beyond that to a cleaner who has handled leather applied to cloth before. Hang it on a broad hanger with space around it. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Capa Charra Magna Negra Calado Gold Rose is the cape on which the house enlarged the cutwork. The Poncho Galvón Negro Calado Plata is black wool with silver leather cut into openwork, the Poncho Galvón Gris Calado Negro sets the openwork in black on a gray ground, and the Poncho Critóbal Gris Calado Roja sets it in red. Everything we carry from Carla Fernández is listed together.