Sustainability, Slow Fashion and Considered Design are all words that define Carcel. The Danish brand is a new type of fashion label where each item is produced in a woman’s prison. Carcel wants to transform lost time into fair wages and give woman new skills and hopes for a better future. The brand doesn’t beat around the bush with its name, which means prison in Spanish. They drew inspiration for the name from the location where they started their first production in Cusco, Peru. The adventure will continue in Thailand where they will manufacture their new collection in women prisons made of the local silk.

Can you tell us about the journey from the moment you got the idea to the collection that is available now? How did this process go and how long it take to start Carcel?

Carcel was founded in April, 2016 by Veronica D’Souza but the idea to provide fairly paid work to female prisoners was first sparked a couple years prior in Kenya where she had the chance to visit a female prison in Nairobi.

She found that the majority of the women were incarcerated due to poverty related crimes. They had a lot of time on their hands and spend a lot of time crafting small items already. However, they are not earning a steady income, as they do not have knowledge about market demands or any real access to sell.

Back in Denmark Veronica partnered up with designer Louise van Hauen who is the woman behind Carcel’s designs. Scandinavian design and the intersection between high rates of female incarceration and high quality materials with sustainable attributes, such as local sourcing, became a cornerstone in building Carcel – and so starting production in Peru was a match for the two women.

Producing high quality garments in a women’s prison in a South American country with no major existing production set up can be challenging. Throughout our journey we have been in the fortunate position that the official Peruvian prison system has been very positive and helpful towards our idea, and we established an official partnership with them when we started our production in the women’s prison in Cusco.

How do you start collaborating with a prison?

We contacted the official prison system in Peru and soon planned the first trip to go meet the authorities and see some the prisons. The Peruvian prison system has been very open towards the idea of providing better opportunities for work for their female inmates. There are already some existing productions within Peruvian prisons, but this is mainly within male prisons, as men are still considered the main provider of the family.

Did you pick the location for the collaboration because of the local materials you wanted to use or because of the woman’s prisons?

Both. We choose countries that have high rates of female incarceration as we see this as the best way to help the most women long term. At the same time these countries have to be accessible in terms of collaboration.