Java.Mar.2016

For Leonor Aispuro, making clothes and sewing is in her blood. She can remember learning to sew around
age five, and working with her cousins and other female family members on creative projects. Aispuro
took particular inspiration from her aunt, who was disabled. “When I lived in Mexico, my aunt would
babysit me. She was deaf and mute at the time, and now she is, unfortunately, blind as well.”
Aispuro mostly grew up in Arizona, but when she goes back to visit her aunt, she is astounded to find her still
crafting things with her hands. “At the time, there were no special schools for her, and so she never learned
sign language. I think her way of expressing herself has been through creating. And that’s how she and I would
communicate,” Aispuro says. “In many ways she was like a little girl, like my only playmate.”
“Then, as a teenager, I used to always make things for my friends,” she says. As she and her friends got interested
in fashion in high school, they would sew skirts and matching handbags. She’s always loved making
things with her own two hands.
She started the fashion program at Phoenix College in 2003, straight out of high school at age 17 (she is now
30). At the time, Phoenix College had one of the only college-level fashion programs in the Valley. Arizona
State University didn’t have a program, and the Art Institute of Phoenix only offered fashion merchandising.
Aispuro wanted to start at a place where she could learn more about construction along with the business.
“So I went to school there, and my cousin and I had started our own clothing line called Arte Puro,” she says.
“We took parts of our last names and combined them. It actually translates into ‘Pure Art,’” she explains. The
line came out of their enjoyment of creating accessories. At first, Aispuro and her cousin, Emily Uriarte, worked
mainly with vintage fabrics.
JAVA 13
MAGAZINE