Young Couturiers

La juventud se impone en este oficio de siempre.

By Ana María González Sabat

Photos: Ronald Suárez Rivas

Aleida Rodriguez (19) and Yimian Socarrás  (20) are two young people who devote their lives to sewing. The first one  is in a three month training in Julián Alemán workshop, in Pinar del Río; the second one meetes new challenges, in Catalina Valdes workshop, and he do not limit his profile to the sewing machine, but he tries also to learn other aspects of this world.

Both of them have a future ahead, and their youth and commitment to improve is make real professionals in this profile.

They are just two examples of young people who begin today to learn a craft with a great perspective and that is very necessary in the textile universe of the territory.

Aleida graduated in high school and was ttracted for the way of transforming simple tissues inpieces of clothing with different models and styles. She decided a modern sewing machine can be a good start, and her sewing, the fruit that tomorrow will feed her family.

A New Workshop
Julian Aleman workshop is new. You enter the room and compares it in your mind with the old one, and the difference is huge. Today the large space owns better conditions of work, technologically as in atmosphere.

Ventilation, lighting and modern furniture are assets of this group of 97 workers, who have a workplace that includes dining room and kitchen with all the tools needed to prepare food  with quality and style.

Magalys Arencibia, director of the workshop, says almost all of the machines are new.

We spoke in her desk with Barbara Gonzalez, who is happy with the new technology and points out  they are computerized: "Little by little we learn to know our machines", she tells us with a sense of belonging.

At the time of our visit the operators made denim skirts, and more recently they dedicated to Bermuda shorts and trousers.

They told us that in the first months of the year they produced uniforms for the current school year.

Since they began their work this January, after a total repair in 2010, they prepare and train the new personnel, mostly technicians of other areas, who are relocated in these workshops

These young people have their first time before a sewing machine, and who knows if like Marta Rodriguez, who works in Catalina Valdes workshop, they will be tomorrow a vivid testimony of 20 years of labor.