Peru inmates exchange life of crime for fashionable sewing designs
LIMA, Peru — The agile hands of men who once worked as pickpockets, hit men and drug traffickers are these days dedicated to a much more mundane task: Cutting and sewing fabrics to create fashionable clothes at a workshop in the prison where they are serving time.
The inmates at San Pedro de Lurigancho, Peru’s biggest prison, are taking on a new role, sewing for a brand called Pieta — “Mercy” in English — that sells clothing online and has attracted the interest of celebrities like musician Pharrell Williams, who appears on the brand’s Facebook page holding up a shirt.
“They are motivated to work,” said Thomas Jacob, a French designer and businessman leading the initiative.
The 32-year-old founder got his idea years ago while working in Peru shipping fabrics to fashion houses like Chanel. After attending a play performed by inmates based on a novel by Victor Hugo, he struck up a conversation with the prisoners. They mentioned that they had sewing machines in jail but didn’t have the knowledge to create anything with them.
The remark sparked an idea: Give inmates work sewing clothes.
The brand today has sold some 200,000 clothing items and produces 1,000 more each week. Its logo consists of four vertical lines and one horizontal — the image prisoners in Peru sketch to count their days behind bars.
Inmates earn nearly the equivalent of Peru’s minimum wage for their work and also see their sentences reduced.
The work isn’t easy: Many of the 30 men at the machines leave each semester because they are freed, transferred to other prisons or find the job too grueling.
Peru’s jails are overcrowded, but over the last decade, prison officials have partnered with entrepreneurs to help find work for inmates and a hopeful path out of crime. As of 2018, 117 business leaders had signed agreements to offer jobs to inmates.
Jacob said he has plans to market the clothing in Europe and the United States. “If it wasn’t profitable,” he said, “we wouldn’t continue.”