Malinche: Fashion from Montezuma to the World
By Ana Wajszczuk, The Guanacaste Journal

A fashion show at sunset, in a hotel in Santa Teresa beach, the brand new clothing line Malinche - made and inspired in Montezuma - is opening the show.

A dancer with a mask wears a ravishing purple cotton lycra dress for her fire performance. She is dancing on the improvised sand runway with candles on either side. Then three girls exude smoothness in sky blue and pink surf-diva outfits. Next, a male capoeira dancer performs in all-natural green cotton pants. There are hand made painted bikinis and light yoga pants, velvety-blue beach skirts and cami-and-shorts surf combinations. The public is clapping their hands to both the show and the clothes.

Malinche is the only clothing line designed and developed in the area. It was launched last year and Belén García, an Argentinean graphic designer who has lived in the Montezuma area for more than five years, is the heart behind it. She is in charge of the designs and also creates the shows, to promote her line.

“My interest is not only that my work gets to be seen but also to create a very complete show, with artistic performances that reflects Malinche spirit: originality, creativity and beauty,” she explains.

“Malinche is, first of all, comfy clothes with noble materials such as cotton and lycra, designed to be functional but also sexy and versatile. You can play and invent new ways to combine them. I strongly believe in my customer’s creativity,” points out García.

If every area has a different fashion sense; what will work for the city may be overdressed on the beach, and what we wear for a yoga class may not be suitable for a night out even in a beach bar. What Malinche has accomplished is to create an entire wardrobe, from beachwear to yoga and dresses to sexy camis, which works for living on the Costa Rican beach but also shines in the city.

Despite being a small enterprise—García designs, with three collaborators on production, and a few sales representatives—and as hard as it gets to set up a fashion business far from fashion’s It-places, the line has been a remarkable, and global, success. Sold in Montezuma (at Eclipse and Montezuma Yoga at Hotel Los Mangos), Santa Teresa (at Kina Surf Shop and Bambú), La Fortuna (at Nativa) and Jacó beach, it has also made an appearance in New York (at Virayoga and Essential Therapy in NYC and Bikram Yoga Studio in Long Island) and via e mail requests it has traveled from Argentina to México to Germany and allthe way to Australia. Next month, during García’s first trip to Europe, it will be launched in Italy and Spain.

García started with Malinche because she couldn’t find an outfit that suited her sense of style in Costa Rica.

“I find great inspiration living here because nature is, I think, the essence of all beauty, and to combine it in every woman’s body is my goal.”

“I come from Patagonia, the very end of the world, and I love to live in Costa Rica, it’s like being in the belly button of the World. It allows me to meet people from all over and to travel with my designs,” she explains.

The surf line is her new collection, and along the yoga line, are the best sellers of the brand: “Now that women have also conquered the waves, our proposal is to be feminine yet also functional.” The latest addition is yoga pants also for men, “because it was on big demand”

And why Malinche as a name? García found inspiration in the Malinche tree, “a true orange spectacle” that was brought to Costa Rica from Asia, but also in the Aztec woman that conquered Hernán Cortéz’s heart. “I like to think of her as a mediator of the cultural collision, hers was a really difficult part.”

In a country like Costa Rica, with so many different cultures living within, Malinche wants to reflect the great things that a mix can create. Born in Montezuma, worn all over the world, it surely is a positive start.