Putting on a hat is not something I enjoy doing. Due to the fact that my head is already larger than an L, I have always been skeptical of anything that would require me to put my hair up in a ponytail. Any cute, wide-brimmed beach hat, in my experience, will fall off within the first half an hour.
When I first heard that Las Ventanas Al Paraso, a Rosewood Resort in San José del Cabo, Mexico offered hat embroidery lessons, I didn't give it much attention. This gorgeous beachside resort features 84 rooms (including 12 villas and the Ty Warner Mansion, super mario bros both of which can be rented). On a weekend trip there in July, I planned to do some other things, like scuba diving or deep-sea fishing in the Sea of Cortez, but I ended up doing something completely different. What I found out surprised me.
In Cabo, a group of women have established a tiny business known as Corazon Playero, where fourteen embroiderers produce hats of their own design. Showroom manager Christina Padilla explained that "spending more time with her girls" was the original inspiration for the business. For us, it's all about women's liberation.
Padilla was outside on a walkway paved with white stones, next to a huge table piled high with hats of many colors and patterns: white, beige, honey. She showed me how to make some of the designs, like the cacti with pink choya flowers on top. "Like these cactus flowers," she referred to the natives of Baja California Sur, "we name ourselves 'choyeros.'"
I started threading a cactus plant with the assistance of Blanca Mora, an artisan from Mexico. The cactus plant is encircled by blue fan-shaped symbols that stand for the agave plants that are so common in Mexico. It came as a wonderful surprise to work on my hat with Padilla and Mora and hear the narrative behind Corazon Playero. However, this is just one example of the Mexican handiwork on display at Las Ventanas, which includes everything from outdoor statues by artist Rodo Padilla, a celebrated sculptor from Jalisco who specializes in ceramics, to woven bed runners depicting colorful "alebrijes" (mythical creatures popular in Mexican folklore).
'Mexico is a huge country, and region-to-region, village-to-village, families keep art specializations and traditions that don't exist anywhere else,' Frederic Vidal, the resort's general manager, explained to me. He helps Ty Warner, the billionaire behind the Beanie Baby phenomenon and owner of Las Ventanas, find unique things made by local artisans. Almost all of the resort's public artwork, including the pieces shown outdoors, can be purchased. "We deal directly with families that manufacture certain pieces, buy them at a reasonable price, and ask them to come to the resort, when they can," Vidal said. We were being discreetly observed by a jaguar figure made of clay that was larger than life.
Nightly turndown service in my ocean view junior suite included a corn doll "mona de maiz" (woman made of straw) and candles scented with bergamot, verbena, and geranium and presented in hand-painted holders from the Guadalajara-based Cerámica Suro studio. (The owner of a pottery workshop in Los Cabos, José Noé Suro, was recently interviewed by Cultured magazine and offered this description of the hotel's outreach: "When Las Ventanas opened in Los Cabos, they came to us, and that changed everything.")
