Wear New Mexico’s Natural Beauty

SARA MOUER WORKS with raspberry, thimbleberry, aspen, and other plants foraged in the wilds of New Mexico to create one-of-a-kind silk scarves and other clothing adorned with botanical patterns. “I see people start glowing when they put a piece on,” says the Embudo artist. “They’re feeling something so profound that has nothing to do with me. It’s something they’re pulling from nature.”

Growing up in the mountains of northern New Mexico, Mouer drew inspiration from her mother, artist Mary Steigerwald, who began experimenting with an Australian bundle-dyeing technique called ecoprinting. “When she created a piece that looked like leaves, the breath left my body,” Mouer recalls. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Teach me.’ ”

Mouer opened her slow-fashion business, Kala, 13 years ago, pairing luxury fabrics with leaves and other flora. Her process begins with harvesting plants high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and near her home along the Río Grande. She then sprays silk, cashmere, or wool with a concoction of white vinegar and rusty metal from an old railroad tie or horseshoe. “This opens up a chemical pathway into the fabric,” says Mouer, who places leaves on the material and tightly wraps everything around a piece of pipe or rebar. “I steam it outside in my orchard, almost like you’d steam tamales,” she says. 

Once the fabric absorbs the natural pigments in red, indigo, chartreuse, or gold, Mouer unrolls the bundle and shakes off the leaves, revealing their elegant patterns and immortalizing the plants. “Everything I do is of the earth,” she says. “It’s to support the earth and hold nature’s beauty in reverence.”