More than 20 years ago, best friends and fashion design students Catalina Álvarez and Mariana Hinestroza started cold-calling textile companies in their hometown of Medellín, Colombia, asking, "Do you have garbage?" Álvarez recalls. "We want to buy the garbage." And they were like, "What are you doing with the garbage?"
The scraps they were soliciting would go on to be the foundation of a line, Agua Bendita, that began with swimwear made from discarded fabric, stitched together on Álvarez's grandmother's sewing machine. Attached to each swimsuit were traditional good-luck amulets known as scapulars.
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