Handmade Andean Jackets from Peru

QUENDE is a brand founded in Germany. Every jacket is woven and made in Peru by Peruvian hands, finished in Munich and lined with 100% Pima cotton.

More about QUENDE & the meaning of the colours and shapes

In Munich every jacket receives the QUENDE label and its final finishing. With QUENDE we want to make real handcraft visible and support the people who create it. More QUENDE products will follow here at Pachamama Früchte.

A fabric that speaks

In the Andean world a textile is never just fabric. The Inca had no writing in the European sense – textiles were among the most important carriers of meaning, origin and worldview. Many weavers in the highlands of Cusco and Puno still read their patterns like a language today. That is why every QUENDE jacket carries a Quechua name: Allpa (Earth), Wayra (Wind), Yaku (Water), Chaska (Morning Star), Anka (Eagle), Pukara (Fortress), Qillu (Yellow) and Qumir (Green).

The colours

  • Red – the bond with Pachamama, Mother Earth, and with one’s own roots.
  • Yellow – maize and gold; the balance between masculine and feminine.
  • Green – nature, rain and the fruits of the earth.
  • Blue – the sky and the cosmos in which the Southern Cross shines.
  • Violet – for the Inca the first colour, linked to Mama Ocllo, the mother of the Inca people.
  • Rainbow colours – they recall the Wiphala, the symbol of the Andean peoples.

The shapes

  • Diamonds – fields and fertility; in the highlands also qucha (lagoon) or ñawi (eye, spring) – the origin of life.
  • Stepped outlines – the Chakana, the Andean stepped cross. It connects the three worlds of the Andean cosmovision: Hanan Pacha (the upper world), Kay Pacha (the world we live in) and Uku Pacha (the inner world).
  • Zigzags and triangles – rivers, lightning and the mountains, the Apus, who watch over the communities.

Whoever wears a QUENDE jacket wears a piece of this visual language – and the work of the hands that wove it.