The Art of Metal-Thread Weaving | VERDI
Hold a VERDI piece to the light and something happens: the surface shifts. Where natural fiber gives warmth and structure, a thread of copper or steel catches the light and sets it moving. This meeting of the earthen and the luminous is the signature of every VERDI weave — and it begins with a technique developed on the looms of the Colombian Andes.
A technique born on the loom
Around the year 2000, VERDI's founding weaver, Carlos Vera Dieppa, began interweaving natural fibers with metal threads. A pioneer of Latin American textile design, he had spent the 1990s experimenting with fique and other native fibers on manual looms. Introducing copper and stainless steel into the weave transformed craft into something entirely new — a revolutionary language that VERDI carries forward today.
The metals in the weave
VERDI works with a palette of metal threads, each bringing its own quality of light:
- Copper. Warm and living, copper deepens in tone over time, echoing the earthen character of natural fiber.
- Stainless steel. Cool and architectural, steel lends structure and a contemporary sheen.
- Gold- and silver-plated threads. Reserved for the studio's most luminous work, they bring a precious, reflective finish to rugs, panels, and objects.
Ancestral gestures, reimagined
The technique is not only about material, but about the hand. VERDI's vocabulary spans vertical weaving and crochet worked entirely in metal thread, alongside traditional motifs — among them the pineapple and seashell weaves. Each is an ancestral gesture transformed the moment it meets copper or steel: familiar craft, made unfamiliar and new.
From rug to icon
This mastery scales from the intimate to the monumental. For the 2025 Fendi Hand in Hand Baguette, VERDI reimagined the icon in its copper Seashell weave — 931 handwoven seashells crafted over 75 hours in Colombia. In sculptural works like La Macorina, the same technique explores light, rhythm, and structure at the scale of art. Whether a custom rug or a collectible piece, the principle holds: natural fiber, and the work of the hand.
Why it endures
For VERDI, this contrast is more than an aesthetic. It is a conviction the studio inherited from Carlos: that craft survives only when it evolves. Tradition was the starting point, never the limit. Each time metal meets fiber on the loom, close to fifty master weavers in our Bogotá atelier prove that exceptional, sustainable craft is today's ultimate luxury.
Explore the technique across our materials and our metal handbags, each made entirely by hand.
