Carla Fernandez Poncho Galvón Negro Calado Plata

Silver leather on black wool is the highest-contrast arrangement this technique allows, and it changes what you are looking at. On a gray ground with black leather the cutwork reads as shadow and you have to go and find it. Here the wool goes to black and stays there, and the silver sits on top of it as pure line: what you see is the drawing, and the garment behind the drawing recedes almost completely.

The technique is calado de piel, hand-cut leather, and it comes off the charro suit rather than out of a design studio. A rope worked from the saddle wears wool through in the same places every time, so leather was laid over those places, and then cut into pattern so that a protective slab of hide read as something a person had made rather than as a repair. The ornament and the function are the same object. Carla Fernández has taken it onto a poncho, which is the plainest garment she makes, and the plainness is what lets the leather be the entire event. The wool is black. The leather is silver. There is nothing else going on and nothing else needs to.

Why we selected it

Almost nothing in clothing carries a national tradition as a construction technique rather than as a motif, and this piece does it at its most legible. We wanted the version where a person can see, at twenty feet, exactly what was cut and by hand.

The Galvón is one of the poncho models Carla Fernández’s house makes with cut leatherwork, and this is its highest-contrast setting.

Materials and construction

Black wool, with silver leather cut into openwork and applied. We do not hold a fiber percentage or a country of origin for this poncho.

Fit notes

A poncho is held at the shoulder and hangs from there, so it has no fit to speak of and its length is a function of the wearer’s height rather than of a size. Wool has weight; a wool poncho will settle onto the shoulders across a day and will want to be lifted off rather than pulled. It goes over a narrow leg and a close top.

Styling

Over black, which is the arrangement the silver is asking for. Over the Pantalón Tepehua. Over the Top Teco with the Gap Denim Skirt.

Care

Wool with applied leather is two materials with two incompatible answers, so treat the garment by the stricter one. Do not wash it, do not steam the leather, and do not put it in front of a heater. Brush the wool, air it, and take anything further to a cleaner who has handled leather applied to cloth. Fold it or hang it on a broad hanger; never leave it hanging wet. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Poncho Galvón Gris Calado Negro sets the openwork in black on a gray ground. The Capa Charra Gris Calado Negro is gray wool with black hand-cut leather applied, the Capa Charra Magna Negra Calado Gold Rose is the cape on which the house enlarged the cutwork, and the Poncho Cincha Negro Colado Plata takes its name from the girth that holds a saddle on. Everything we carry from Carla Fernández is listed together.