CALICAMPO - COMBINING COLOUR INSPIRATION AND

ALPACA INNOVATION

Background

In the alpaca world the name Calicampo is fast establishing itself as a brand that offers
customers a unique range of alpaca products founded on inspirational colour selection
combined with innovative design and fibre selection.

A relative newcomer to the market, its story begins with Lonnie Helgeson, a master knitter
from Minnesota, who branched out into her own colour design and dyeing of yarns when
she became dissatisfied with the quality of hand-dyed yarns available to her in the USA.

Defining her colouration method as hand-painted, she soon enhanced her creative
reputation within the fashion clothing sector where her products were shown at various
textile shows in the States. Her activity on this circuit eventually brought her into contact
with Miguel Paz, an importer and distributor of alpaca yarns in the USA via his company
Misti International Inc.

Miguel, a Peruvian by birth, grew up in Arequipa where he learnt the alpaca yarn business
and, together with Lonnie, formed a new partnership to expand the sales of uniquely
coloured alpaca yarns within the States as well as beyond its borders.

The frailties of having overall production control and the operational costs of importing
ecru alpaca yarn into the States to be then hand-painted were soon evident and the
partnership took the decision to establish its production facilities in Arequipa where they
were joined in the business by Diana Yriberry, a textile designer and boutique owner there.

The three partners set up their dyeing plant operation in the Zamacola district of the city in
2007 and named the company Calicampo S.A.C.

Hand-painted production

Whilst primarily sourcing and hand-painting its own alpaca and cotton yarns in Arequipa
for sale in the USA market, Calicampo also offers its dyeing service to other customers as
well.

Handling third party customers yarns has the added benefit of learning from the experience
of applying the hand-painted colouration procedure on fibres and blends not usually part of
the companys own portfolio, such as 100% wool and wool/alpaca.

The company uses two distinct routes for its colouration procedure: synthetic dyes from
industrial chemical suppliers who meet European Environmental regulations and natural
plant dyes sourced in Peru, where cochineal, beetroot, onion, purple maize and eucalyptus
are but a few in a very substantial list.

The hand-painting technology allows up to 50 colours to be applied to a skein of yarn thus
offering an infinite array of colour combinations in a totally manual operational process
which commences with Lonnies own colour creations or her interpretation of a customers
idea.

Once the concept of the combination of colours is established, the number and individual
amount of colours to be applied is mapped out for the operative and to conform with the
overall circumference and weight of the skein.

The dyeing operatives then apply each colour manually to the skein which receives a final
colour fixation treatment to prevent fading or bleeding after washing. The quality of the
hand-painted process of each batch is tested to comply with international light and wet
fastness standards.

Essentially an artisanal system run on a production line basis, each product has a
uniqueness that comes from slight individual variances that occur with any handmade
article. Thus, it can be truly said that no yarn or garment is ever precisely the same as
another.

With a staff of 17 personnel, Calicampos hand-painted facility can produce around 1,500
kgs of dyed yarns per month and it has recently developed yarns whose hues are tone-on-
tone in differing intensities, giving a more solid colour effect overall.

Three years ago the company launched a range of its own handknitted items which
comprise of an annual Autumn/Winter womens collection of baby alpaca garments and a
Spring womens collection made from Peruvian pima cotton, pima/silk and organic tanguis
cotton.

Commercial growth

It would be a reasonable assumption to make that a business that employs design
interpretations and colour inspirations with natural fibres would have sound business ethics.
It will come as no surprise, then, to learn that Calicampos business ethics are governed by
strong principles of fair trade.

In April of this year the company was awarded the Certificacion de Comercio Justo, a fair
trade recognition administered by the Peruvian governments foreign trade promotional
body, PromPeru. The company was trained and evaluated over a three-year period in order
to obtain the certification which underpins the strategy laid down by its three partners.

The transitional gowth of the business from yarn dyeing to knitwear production has been
both a gradual and natural move that has seen the company invest in three 3-gauge manual
knitting frames for garment prototype development as well as an extensive quality training
programme for its handknitting operatives.

The increase in production facilities in Arequipa has been a direct response to the
commercial gowth experienced by the company in its biggest market, the USA, driven by
the activities of Miguel Pazs sales through Misti International. The company has also
witnessed an increased demand for its products in its home market, Peru.

For the past four years, the company has taken a stand at Peru Moda in Lima, the countrys
flagship textile show where the attendance of both domestic and foreign textile buyers has
risen year on year and has been a significant factor in enabling the company to open-up
new export markets, notably Spain, France, the UK, Norway and New Zealand.

Indeed, word of mouth bouquets from satisfied customers together with a policy of
participating in textile fairs where it can display the uniqueness of its products to trade and
public alike, has resulted in a greater consumer awareness that has been reflected in a
pattern of steady growth and turnover for the company.

Future

The companys skillful management of creativity, handcraftsmanship, colour and natural
fibres together with its philosophy of fairness in business would seem to be aptly borne out
in its name, Calicampo, which is a broadly interpreted fusion of the spanish words for
heating or warmth, calefaccion, and field (vision), campo.

The continued application of these elements in the production of yarns and knitwear should
stand the company in good stead going forward.

A recent development undergoing trial for the near future is the application of the hand-
painting technique on a knitted ecru baby alpaca scarf, allowing the possibility of greater
control of the colour distribution as well as other visual effects.