The story behind our Mexico collection - pure by luce sustainable activewear
We've got a crush on the world - pure by luce creates sustainable, travel-inspired activewear with standout prints and unexpected cuts. Designing each collection, we collaborate with international artists who create our prints, each time in a different country from around the world. Our first collection is inspired by alluring and exotic Mexico. Read here all about the inspiration behind and the design process of the pure by luce Mexico collection.
The inspiration
Mexico is where founder Loes was first inspired to start pure by luce. Living there in Guadalajara for six months in 2015 as an MBA exchange student, she got the idea to start her own sustainable activewear brand by collaborating with artists from all over the world. However, still somewhat unsure about starting something on her own before she'd acquired any experience as an employee ‒ apart from some student jobs ‒ she laid the idea to rest.
beach photo taken by pure by luce founder Loes when she was in Tulum (Mexico) in 2015
The beginning
Two years later, in 2017, Loes still couldn’t let go of the idea to start her own sustainable sportswear brand, so she decided to take the plunge. At a trade fair in Paris where she was researching fabrics, Loes met the Belgian textile designers Valerie Tjantele and Jente Hendrickx, who came to be pure by luce' first guest designers. Loes and Jeu de Fil made a mood board with inspiration from Mexico and from that the Tulum print was created.
The print
The textural print Tulum is named after the namesake Mexican Maya city, where we found inspiration in structures and materials in the Maya ruins, which had left an impression on Loes when she'd visited the city. They are located nearby cliffs of the Caribbean Sea, containing many exotic plants and trees, making Tulum a magical place. The print refers to a palm leaf, which transfers the exotic feel of Tulum into the first pure by luce collection. The abstracted palm leaf print has become a play between rigid and graphic elements. Up close, the two colours blue and green are clearly distinguishable, but from afar the two colours fade into one another, resulting in an exotic texture.
Mexican palm leave which formed the basis for the print Tulum
The designs
Using the Tulum print as the foundation for our entire Mexico collection, we started designing the garments. The Tulum print formed the basis for the entire Mexico collection. For the bottoms, Loes designed both fully printed leggings and black leggings with a printed stripe on the sides. For the sports tops, she opted for elegant pieces, each of which standing out because of the Tulum print being integrated into a detail. The pure by luce' Mexico collection has thus become the sustainable activewear brand's most feminine and elegant collection to date. The designs proved to be so successful that they are now part of our fixed collection. As with our entire collection, each activewear garment in the Mexico collection is made from sustainable European materials and sewn in ethically-managed factories in Portugal.
