Jewelry Designer Lizzie Fortunato's Guide to Oaxaca Jewelry and leather goods designer Lizzie Fortunato headed to Oaxaca, Mexico on a sun-drenched inspiration trip. We tagged along to find out what she picked up along the way. Jewelry Designer Lizzie Fortunato's Guide to Oaxaca This past spring jewelry and leather goods designer Lizzie Fortunato traveled with her twin sister/business partner Kathryn to Oaxaca and Mexico City for an inspiration trip. They returned home with ideas for a new color palette (dusty pinks and rich cognac) as well as heaps of traditional Otomi pillows and handmade Mexican baskets, which inspired the duo to launch Fortune Finds, a collection of home goods informed by their own far-flung travels. It’s a relatively easy flight from New York City, where the sisters are based, to Mexico City. From there, they drove to Oaxaca. “We stocked up on some snacks, including fresh orange and pineapple juices, and hopped in the car with our friend Apolonia, who was our guide for the week,” says Lizzie.

It’s about a five-hour drive from Mexico City to Oaxaca, but the views—everything from huge canyons and long expansion bridges—serve as a visual feast to pass help the time. Museo Textil de Oaxaca Flea market lovers will delight in a visit to the picturesque Museo Textil de Oaxaca, located in an old, sprawling covent building and devoted solely to traditional Oaxacan craft and handiwork. Don't miss the century old looms and antique huipils (traditional Mexican tunics made of woven fabric) on display. The small gift shop has a well-edited selection of books on Mexican crafts if you want to learn more. Give yourself plenty of time to explore Oaxaca’s main artisanal market, Mercado de Artesanias. Here you’ll find butchers, cheese makers, florists, leather workers, basket weavers, grocers, and textile designers. Look for textiles in the traditional Mexican Otomi style—a kind of colorful embroidery done on natural cotton canvas. “Don’t be scared to negotiate a little bit and, as always, buy things you love, as opposed to things that are trendy,” says Lizzie.

You’ll end up with an “I’ll-take-one-of-everything mentality” wandering around Aripo, a one-stop shop for an assortment of crafts that come from all over the state of Oaxaca. business for sale 4017Tucked into a colonial building on Garcia Vigil, the rooms surrounding the courtyard each display a different kind of craft. business for sale bozeman mt809 Garcia Vigil, Oaxaca, Mexico; handyman services in bedford Los Baules de Juana Cataaverage hourly rate for handyman services Remigio Mestas Revilla is something of Oaxaca’s patron saint when it comes to handicrafts: For the last 30-plus years he’s worked with weavers in remote villages to revive lost traditions and give craftsmen a place to show their wares. business for sale morecambe

Enter his charming shop, Los Baules de Juana Cata, in the historic district, chock full of pieces created by artisans that Remigio has supported over the years. handyman service nashville“He’s the go-to for the most beautiful textiles,” says Lizzie. “I came back with a number of woven and embroidered dresses.” Macedonio Alcala in the Los Danzantes Patio, Oaxaca, Mexico; Take a break from shopping and head 20 minutes outside the city to the Monte Albán ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage site that is one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica. Stroll through the Great Plaza, a wide flat space that offers breathtaking city and valley views. “The ancient construction and beautiful graphic lines of the ruins was a major source of inspiration for our spring/summer 2015 leather goods collection,” says Lizzie.I was a small-business manager, and she was an executive assistant, and, financially, we always seemed to be just getting by.

I was raised in a workaday Midwestern steel town, steeped in the idea that you were your job, which, of course, I resented. She was a San Diego native born to a cross-border Mexican family; by 30, she had experienced half a lifetime of just getting by on menial jobs. We were together for several years before we found ourselves struggling against a downturn in the economy, unemployment, rising debts, and a new baby. Facing pending financial ruin, and with an eviction notice pinned to our door, our world and relationship began to fall apart. To be honest, our financial lives had been in decline for a few years before the economy tanked, but now all our time became consumed with being new parents and trying to survive. Maria’s pregnancy hadn’t been easy, which made things more difficult for us both. By the time the baby arrived, she was deep into postpartum depression and I was trying, and failing, to keep it all together for our new family. For the first time in either of our lives, the possibility of homelessness was part of our daily conversation.

One night, over frozen pot-pie dinners, I suggested something I was sure she would reject out of hand. “Let’s move to Tijuana.” Maria replied without pause, “I was thinking the same thing.” Maybe the cheap rent and cost of living south of the border would give us some room to breathe, along with a chance of putting money back in our pockets. Because our American reality was that we didn’t have enough money to pay the rent, and moving to a different apartment was out of the question. I had about two-thirds of the current amount due in my pocket. In San Diego, all that would get us was evicted. In Tijuana, we reasoned, that money was equal to about six months’ rent. As we were out of options, it was settled: we were moving to Mexico. The next morning, we began to sell off possessions we hadn’t already sold or pawned. Within a week, we were loading everything that remained into the car and heading down to Tijuana. Living in Mexico is a lot different than living in the States, in a lot more ways than you might think.

First, the obvious: it’s less worrisome, financially. In Mexico, most rental agreements are verbal, and deposits are usually very low, if required at all. After four months of searching, we rented a large, American-style house for a fraction of what our one-bedroom apartment in San Diego had cost. There was a flip side, however. In Mexico, if you default on your rent, the landlord may well walk into the house and start grabbing your things, to sell or keep in lieu of funds owed. Still, with prices this low, and the border crossing less than five minutes away, I figured I’d find a job on the American side, after which things would surely pick up. In Tijuana, this is one of the most sought-after living scenarios: American job, Mexican cost of living. It didn’t take long to realize that moving to TJ wouldn’t improve our lives as much as we thought. Living in Mexico posed challenges, chief among them the fact that, even with the border so close, the wait to cross could be as much as three hours.

It turns out that having a job in the States — if you can find one — means crossing in the U.S. before 6:00 a.m. and crossing back into Mexico after 6:00 p.m., regardless of your working hours. And American employers are notoriously unsympathetic to cross-border dilemmas. You need to maintain an American address so that they don’t know that you reside in Mexico; otherwise, with most of them, your application goes to the bottom of the list. It was soon clear that we’d need to make money south of the border. With biting poverty and an overabundance of poorly paid local labor available, that would be difficult — especially for gringos. We did our best for a while. We tried a lot of different things, including selling homemade food — a common business in Mexico — and gathering up free or inexpensive things from Craigslist and yard sales around San Diego, even items abandoned in alleys. We crossed these things into Mexico to sell at neighborhood sobre ruedas (swap meets).

Within a few months, we were working longer, harder hours than if we’d had regular jobs, but for a fraction of the money. Most days, we did only a little better than break even. On one occasion, after being on the road with the baby the entire day, we were fleeced of the last of our gas money by Mexican border inspectors. We ran out on the side of a dark Tijuana road, three miles from home, and wound up trading a pair of boots, a rocking chair, and some tools for a gallon of gas. That misadventure cost twice what we’d earned from the day’s haul. Taking so many steps backward was frustrating, but we tried to remember that, because of this effort, we weren’t homeless. We were taking care of our child. In addition to the difficulty of obtaining items to sell, people who buy at the sobre ruedas are muy tocano (as the locals complain while tapping their elbows) — meaning, really cheap. They’re a frugal people, accustomed to doing without, so it’s difficult to sell things unless you can get the items inexpensively.