Oct 222020
 

Josefa, the fashion designer credited with showcasing Mexican styles on the world haute couture stage, lived and worked for many years at Lake Chapala. She successfully melded indigenous Mexican colors and elements with functional design to produce elegant and original dresses and blouses. Josefa designs were never mass-produced but made by local women in small villages near Guadalajara.

Josefa Ibarra and her business partner, Ana Villa, built up a brand known as El Aguila Descalza (The Barefoot Eagle). Based in Tlaquepaque, The Barefoot Eagle opened retail stores in several major Mexican cities and one in Boston, while simultaneously supplying numerous high-end department and fashion stores in the USA and elsewhere.

Design by Josefa

Design by Josefa

Josefa followed her own intuition as regards fashion and her success resulted from a series of serendipitous encounters. Her first lucky break came while she was living in Puerto Vallarta in the late 1950s. Josefa and her husband, Jim Heltzel, lived near the beach in a thatched hut, from where Josefa sold jewelry made of coconuts and seashells. The couple’s hippie lifestyle extended to Josefa designing and making her own dresses and beachwear. Walking along the beach one day in 1959, Josefa struck up a conversation with Chris and Lois Portilla who ran the Mexican concession at Disneyland. They were far more interested in the clothes she was wearing than her jewelry and suggested that they help her market her dress designs.

Josefa began to make more designs and sell her creations to visiting tourists. Her second big break, in 1963, involved American superstar Elizabeth Taylor, who was visiting Puerto Vallarta, then only a small village, while Richard Burton was filming The Night of the Iguana, directed by John Huston and co-starring Ava Gardner.

One afternoon, in a break from filming, Taylor was with the cast and crew exploring the village when they came across a selection of beautiful dresses hanging from the branches of a tree outside a typical small hut. The visitors bought every last one of Josefa’s dresses and the famous American movie star subsequently added numerous additional Josefa designs to her wardrobe during her repeat visits to Puerto Vallarta over the next decade.

Even with Taylor’s support, it is unlikely that Josefa would have become as famous as she did had it not been for a third lucky break. This came when she was introduced by a friend, Lou Foote, to Boston-born Ana Konstandin Villa, who worked in Tlaquepaque alongside her husband, Edmondo Villa, for Arthur Kent, owner of El Palomar, the famous stoneware factory. Ana and her husband wanted to open their own retail store. Ana, a graduate of the Academy Moderne of Fashion in Boston, had an eye for style and was a buyer for the city’s Filene’s Department Store. Ana loved Josefa’s designs and realized that they presented a unique business opportunity. The two ladies got on famously together and their complementary skill sets ensured the success of The Barefoot Eagle, the Villas’ store in Tlaquepaque.

Journalist Sheryl Kornman who interviewed Josefa in 1970 found her just “as exciting, as articulate, as vivid as the costumes she designs.” Kornman described Josefa as casually dressed, wearing a “flimsy blue and red short shift” with her “long brown hair in a braid tossed forward over one shoulder,” and sandals on her feet. The designer said she had started by making jewelry in Puerto Vallarta a little more than a decade earlier before beginning to sew her own clothes and making some for friends. She then taught her “house girl” and others how to sew, and began to produce designs inspired by indigenous Huichol and Oaxacan handicrafts and art. At the time of Kornman’s interview, Josefa and her husband were living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from where Josefa returned to Guadalajara at least twice a year, timing the visits to prepare for a summer line released in April and a fall/winter line released a few months later.

The Barefoot Eagle grew rapidly and became Mexico’s leading producer of internationally famous high fashion women’s apparel. Chris Adams (Ana Villa’s brother-in-law) provides a detailed case study of The Barefoot Eagle in his book, Up Your Sales in Any Economy. At its peak, the company employed several hundred women in three outlying villages near Guadalajara to undertake all the embroidery and decoration, with everything done by hand to maintain the artesanal quality. Most of the cotton fabric used came from Mexico City; the steadfast dyes were imported.

The Barefoot Eagle opened retail stores in several major Mexican cities: Acapulco, Cancún, Manzanillo, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, Monterrey, San Miguel de Allende, Tijuana, and Zihuatanejo. It also opened one in Boston’s famed Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Overseas stores that stocked Josefa designs included Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and Macy’s, in addition to specialist boutiques in Denmark, England, the Netherlands and France.

The celebrity effect was contagious. Besides Elizabeth Taylor, those photographed wearing Josefa dresses or blouses included Lady Bird Johnson (who wore a Josefa dress for the cover of McCall’s magazine in August 1974), Glenda Jackson (in the movie A Touch of Class), Sophia Loren, Diana Ross, Loretta Young, Princess Grace of Monaco, Nancy Reagan, Deborah Kerr and Farah Diba, the wife of the former Shah of Iran. A Josefa-designed shirt was worn by Bo Derek’s onscreen husband in the Movie 10, which was filmed at Las Hadas in Manzanillo.

Josefa was, according to various sources, the first Mexican dress designer to have her work grace the cover of Vogue Paris. Interestingly, not long afterwards, another designer—Gail Michel de Guzmán—who lived at Lake Chapala at the same time as Josefa, had her own work featured in Vogue Paris.

According to Adams, Josefa considered it a compliment that she was the most copied designer in Mexico. Adams played a part in the commercialization of The Barefoot Eagle brand, producing a factsheet and sales pointers for all the salespeople in the various retail stores. Among other things, salespeople were instructed to ensure that prospective clients understood that even if they thought the items were pricey, they were definitely worth every centavo because they were hand-embroidered designer creations and works of art.

The Barefoot Eagle and Josefa’s brand continued to grow. Josefa was one of the first designers in Mexico to export on a large-scale. The extraordinary export success of Josefa was recognized by Mexico’s federal government which awarded her company a National Export Prize seven years in a row. With the sponsorship and support of the Mexican Embassy in the US, Josefa held a special Mexican fashion show in 1974 in Washington D.C. for all the ambassadors stationed there.

Exhibition of designs by Josefa

2004 exhibition of Mexican textiles and designs by Josefa

The extraordinary quality of Josefa’s designs and workmanship led to her work being the focus of a major exhibition in Mexico City at the Museo de la Indumentaria Luis Marquez Romay in 2004. A stunning display (250 designs in all) showcased Josefa’s manta kaftans in their distinctive Mexican textures and colors (turquoise, green, fuchsia, rose and yellow). Decorated with embroidered flowers, designs influenced by Mexico’s indigenous peoples, butterflies and geometric patterns, the exhibit was a kaleidoscope of color. Josefa had cemented her reputation as “an icon of national fashion design.”

Josefa’s designs were also included in 2009 in a second major Mexico City exhibition at the Mexico City Popular Art Museum (Museo de Arte Popular de la Ciudad de México). Curated by Mario Méndez, “México de autor, historia en color” juxtaposed Josefa’s “modern” designs alongside indigenous textile items from the Mapelli collection, emphasizing what they had in common and how one influenced the other. Josefa’s “Mexicanized” designs, celebrating bright colors, owed much to, and simultaneously increased the appeal of, indigenous textile patterns and clothing.

Josefa retired from designing clothing in the late 1980s.

While several earlier designers, such as Jim and Rita Tillet, had successfully established smaller operations and exported Mexican fashions, they had never succeeded in scaling up production to the levels reached by The Barefoot Eagle. Others, such as American Charmin Schlossman, who lived in Ajijic in the 1940s, took their creativity back home and established successful firms north of the border.

Mysterious early life

Relatively little is known for sure about her life story outside fashion. Adams described Josefa as Mexican born and residing in Tlaquepaque and the state of Oregon. According to a 2004 news piece, Josefa claimed to have been born in Chihuahua more than 80 years ago, while friends claimed she had arrived in Puerto Vallarta 30 years ago from the state of Oregon.

Label in Josefa blouse

Label in Josefa blouse

According to the registration of her birth, Josefa Ibarra García was born on 12 April 1919 in Ciudad Sabinas Hidalgo in the state of Nuevo León. However, her birth was only registered in that city on 10 March 1928 when she was 9 years old! Her parents were Rafael Ibarra Valle (Rafael Ybarra-Valle in the USA) and Isidra García. The plaque on the grave of Josefa’s parents in a Fort Worth, Texas, cemetery, reads “Rafael Ybarra-Valle (1883-1968) / Isidra (1889-1981).” Both of Josefa’s parents were born in Mexico. The couple had at least four children: three girls and a boy. Even before the arrival of Josefa, the family had apparently been living on-and-off in Fort Worth, where their only son, Ray, was born in 1915.

According to Rubén Díaz, a friend of Josefa’s and now the editor of Mexico City-based Fashion News, Josefa returned to Mexico at age 18 (ie in about 1937) and traveled all over the country as a flight attendant with Mexicana de Aviación. After meeting and marrying Jim Heltzel (previously married to Eleanor Reed), the newly weds lived among the indigenous communities of various states in Mexico, including Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Veracruz and Guerrero, before settling in Puerto Vallarta.

During the 1980s and 1990s, The Barefoot Eagle’s prime years, Josefa lived at Lake Chapala. Her home (with one room devoted to a working studio) was designed by her good friend Jorge Wilmot, the famous potter. Wilmot added many personal touches to the home, located in El Limón, just west of San Juan Cosalá, including a special hand-made foot bath in the ensuite since Josefa, as her company name suggested, was accustomed to going barefoot most of the day.

Josefa’s success enabled her to travel more widely and she was particularly inspired by a trip to China. Unfortunately, in retirement, she experienced both health and financial problems. She came out of retirement to work for a while, offering designs for others to produce and market. Eventually, though, her declining health meant she could no longer focus on her passion. In a letter to a friend in May 2002, Josefa complained about three terrible months of ill health while waiting to have cataract surgery on the IMSS (Mexican Social Security) and admitted she was “getting fed up at waiting and not knowing a date.” Meanwhile, she wrote, she had accepted a job with

“a couple who will make up dresses from my designs…. I never thought I’d go back to those working days EVER – they were great days (while it lasted) but egods this is not the time to try and start up ANYTHING – it’s insane, that’s what it is but the peso isn’t worth a damn and with the bottom having fallen to NADA – things couldn’t be worse. (At least here in Chapala).”

Exhibition of designs by Josefa

Exhibition of Mexican textiles and designs by Josefa

In about 2006, as her health and finances continued to decline, Josefa sold her house and moved into a nursing home. When she abandoned her home, she left behind a decorated trunk full of personal photos, documents and design memorabilia. The new owner, a Canadian woman, left the trunk in the house for years in homage to Josefa. When the house was resold about a year ago, the trunk was removed for safekeeping; a suitable permanent home is now being sought for it.

Among Josefa’s effects in the trunk was a clearly-treasured, much folded and faded handwritten extract from Witter Bynner’s translation of Lao Tzu “The Way of Life”. It is unclear how well Josefa knew Bynner, who had a house in Chapala from 1940 to his death in 1968.

Before it move, hold it,
Before it go wrong, mould it,
Drain off water in winter before it freeze,
Before weeds grow, sow them to the breeze.
You can deal with what has not happened, can foresee
Harmful events and not allow them to be.
Though– as naturally as a seed becomes a tree of arm-wide girth-
There can rise a nine-tiered tower from a man’s handful of earth
Or here at your feet a thousand-mile journey have birth,
Quick action bruises,
Quick grasping loses.
Therefore a sane man’s care is not to exert
One move that can miss, one move that can hurt.
Most people who miss, after almost winning,
Should have ‘known the end from the beginning.’
A sane man is sane in knowing what things he can spare,
In not wishing what most people wish,
In not reaching for things that seem rare.
The cultured might call him heathenish,
This man of few words, because his one care
Is not to interfere but to let nature renew
The sense of direction men undo.

By 2008, Josefa was confined to a wheelchair while waiting for a hip replacement operation. A fashion fund raiser was held that year in Ajijic to help pay for her medical treatment.

Josefa Ibarra, artist, entrepreneur and mother of Mexican fashion, died in about 2010. Her decision to develop designs incorporating folkloric motifs and her insistence on incorporating artisanal workmanship prodded Mexican fashion design into a direction still evident today.

Her continued influence on young Mexican designers was highlighted by an exhibit in Guadalajara in 2016. Examples of Josefa’s work formed the backdrop to an end of course display of work by young students graduating from UTEG (Universidad Tecnológica Empresarial de Guadalajara).

Several Josefa designs were chosen for inclusion in “El Arte de la Indumentaria y la Moda en México (1940-2015),” a Mexico City show held in 2016 at the Palacio de Cultura Banamex (Palacio de Iturbide) to commemorate 75 years of Mexican fashion design.

International interest in Josefa’s designs has also continued unabated. For example, her work was showcased north of the border in a December 2016 exhibit, “La Familia”, at Friends of Georgetown History (6206 Carleton Ave S) in Seattle, Washington. The show was of selected pieces from the collection of Allan Phillips, a grandson of Josefa’s sister, Olivia.

In 2017, Mexico was the featured country at the VII Congreso Bienal Latinoamericano de Moda in Cartagena, Colombia. An accompanying exhibit—“México Mágico”— took a retrospective look at the history of Mexico’s fashion industry, and how Josefa had set what had been only a nascent industry on the path to global success. The exhibit included contemporary work by students from the Universidad de Guadalajara that echoed the path laid down by Josefa.

Josefa’s legacy lives on. Her story has been shared with succeeding generations of fashion students in Mexico and she is justly referred to as “the mother of Mexican fashion” or as “Mexico’s Coco Chanel”. Students are taught that it is perfectly possible—indeed fashionably current and profitable—to bring elements of indigenous, local design to the global fashion scene.

Note: This is an expanded (and corrected) version of a post first published on 12 September 2018.

Acknowledgment

  • My sincere thanks to Sherry Hudson for her assistance with compiling this profile.

Sources

Comments, corrections or additional material related to any of the writers and artists featured in our series of mini-bios are welcomed. Please use the comments feature at the bottom of individual posts, or email us.

  23 Responses to “Josefa, the “mother of Mexican fashion design””

  1. Before ‘Night of the Iguana” Josefa was making and selling her clothing and dresses in my mother’s store at the Disneyland Hotel, ‘Latin Imports’. My parents met Josefa and Jim after they built our vacation home in Puerto Vallarta in the early 50s. It was a very small community back then and all ex pats knew one another (no electricity, only a rutted dirt road through the jungle from Tepic and no telephones. My mother, Lois Portillo, fell in love with her designs and sold as much as Josefa could produce. The movie making brought new attention to the town, as well as to Josefa, and she soared from there. My parents remained friends with she and Jim for much of their lives.
    My daughter and I have a few of her designs still and are hoping to find a buyer or collector who might want them. Thank you for caring about Josefa. She was a genius and unique friend. Diane Portillo djoycep@gmail.com

    • Diane, Thank you for your kind words and very informative and interesting comments which I will definitely take into account the next time I revise the post. Are you, by any chance, able to confirm Josefa’s place or year of birth, or any other biographical details? Thanks again for taking the time to comment, Tony.

    • It was fantastic to find this article. I found a dress by Josefa at a thrift store that supports Ninos Incapacitados in Riberas. I hadn’t heard of her, but I could tell there was something special about the dress. I am talking to the board of Ninos Incapacitados about donating the dress at a fashion show and auction fundraiser they have. I’m not sure of the date yet, but in addition to making money for a charity with the dress, I am interested in keeping Josefa’s legacy alive. Reply to this post if you want to know more about the event. I am also interested in any pictures you may have of Josefa. Thank you Diane & Tony! – Mari (aka Maria down here!)

    • What a great find! Thanks for the kind words and support and I wish your fund-raiser every success. I’m replying more fully via email, TB.

  2. Correction: The Thrift Store is Casi Nuevo & all profits all go to support The School for Special Children in Jocotepec, not for Ninos Incapacitados; however, as both organizations help children in the Lake Chapala area with disabilities, they often work together. Thanks for your reply! I’ll look for it!

    • Mari Reed- I have photos of two of Josefa’s dresses that were left in the house when I took over in 2009. I later gave them to a friend in Riberas, who I suspect may have sent them to the Bazaar that you found them in. Could I send you photos to see if they are the same ones? I have often wondered what happened to them.

  3. Hello – I am an avid collector of Josefa’s work, and would love to hear from any of you regarding pieces that you may be interested in selling – please contact me at marjorie@lamalaquitamerida.com.

    • Hello to all who follow Josefa’s story. I am the current owner of her former home in El Limon which is now being sold. She had left behind an old trunk packed with her memorabilia, including old photos of herself and models in her fashions, pages of her diary, and several articles of clothing bearing her label. I hate to see this end up in a dump as a buyer wouldn’t know the history behind these things. If anyone is collecting and would be interested in acquiring any or all these artifacts, please contact Sherry at ravenblackhorse@hotmail.com soon as I am leaving Mexico end of January.

    • UPDATE [Feb 2020]. Thanks to Sherry Hudson’s generosity, the trunk and its contents are now in my care. I am currently seeking interest from any museum that might be interested in keeping the collection together. At a later stage, if no museum is interested, some items will be auctioned off or donated to worthy causes in the Lake Chapala area to assist in their fund-raising efforts.

      [Original comment: I’ve emailed you regarding this. I am definitely interested in seeing the memorabilia, Tony.]

    • Marjorie – I have a Josefa hanging in my closet that I purchased in Matamoros, Mexico in 1989. I wore it one time.

      It is in pristine condition. Although I am older and larger, I love her fashions, dresses and color.

      My dress is long, blue/pink striped with some ribbons hanging down. I have noticed that her fashions sell for several hundred dollars.

      Contact me if you are interested and I can send a photo.

  4. Another fabulous job dear Tony. It reawakened so many memories, of time spent with Josefa and Ana Villa. And thanks to you I learned much that I didn’t know. In spite of her incredible talent and fame, she was very down to earth and easy going during the times we spent together in Puerta Vallarta and in Guadalajara. She played the guitar and sang. I treasure the dress I have of hers, and many lovely memories.

    • Thank you, Phyllis. I’m delighted you enjoyed that post. I have you to thank for insisting I definitely include Josefa in this series of profiles. (You were sitting at the end of our dining room table at the time!) I’m sorry I never got to meet her but very happy that the post brings back such good memories for you. Keep well and stay safe, love from both of us, Tony.

  5. I loved her dresses. Wish I had them still.

  6. If the trunk is available , it should go to Teresa Phillips niece of Josefa Ibarra .. she is my sister n law ..
    I ‘m also a niece by marriage … I met Josefa and her husband Jim when they came to visit her sister Olivia Phillips in Las Cruces in 1973 .. Josefa Gifted me $50 pesos for a wedding present … We spoke about the time I went to Mexico City when I was 16… I was an aspiring fashion designer at the time …

  7. I bought a wonderful long dress at an estate sale today and am thrilled to learn about the creator. I love all things Mexico and will display this as the work of art it is. Thanks for the info.

  8. Hello to all! My name is Linda Míreles and love this space to learn more about Josefa. I love her for empowering the women around Mexico and giving them the opportunity to sew and embroider for her while being able to provide for their families! I am interested in the opportunity to purchase Josefa’s on this platform too. My email address is linda_mireles@yahoo.com.
    Best wishes ❤️

  9. I PURCHASED A WONDERFUL JOSEFA DRESS IN THE 1980’S AT THE FABULOUS ARTISINAL STORE FONART IN MEXICO CITY. I WAS TAKEN WITH THE DETAIL AND BRIGHT COLORS OF THIS DRESS… AND PLANNED TO WEAR IT. AS IT TURNED OUT I DIDN’T HAVE THAT CHANCE AND THE DRESS REMAINED UNTOUCHED AND SAFELY STORED FOR YEARS. WOULD ANYONE KNOW THE VALUE OF THIS DRESS AS I NOW WISH TO SELL IT? I HAVE MANY PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE DRESS WHICH I WOULD BE HAPPY TO SHOW.

  10. I also have a Josefa dress with a Neiman Marcus label as well. I bought it at a resale shop, not being aware of zJosefa’s designs but because the fabric and colors on the dress were so amazing. I wish I could keep the dress as an object if art but am trying to downsize and need to sell it. I will send photos of the dress to the administrator if this great article. Surely wish I could see the display in Merida. Are there pictures of the show?
    Patti Jordan
    Patticjordan@gmail.com

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