Rad Lokal

"Rad" means clothes in Creole, and in English is an especially fitting adjective to describe Magniola David's handmade and painted creations:

I met Magniola through Junya, Margaret and Bernithe. I work once a week at KPL's office and after months of being given a hard time for helping them with a "support local production" campaign while wearing non-local (although mostly secondhand) clothes, I finally consented to go with them to a tailor.

First of all, her name: Magniola makes me think of magnolias which make me think of my sister and that is a sweet association. In addition to being an extremely talented seamstress and a creative artist, Magniola exudes self-confidence. She is fiercely proud of who she is and where she comes from and the minute I met her I wanted to soak in her energy. Skeptical before we went, I ended up ordering 3 tops over several visits.

For this one, she copied a store-bought blouse of Junya's and added the awesome hand-painted flowers:

I have thing for veggies, so I'm tickled with this one:

This one's my favorite (a bit wrinkled here):

Because she lost her shop in the earthquake, I'd love to help drum up more business for Magniola. I'm taking pictures of things as she makes them for an album that she can show to clients, as well as posting this blogger-tisement. If you're a Haiti reader and think her work is as rad as I do, let me know and I'd be happy to put you in touch. She can pretty much make or paint anything!

-posted by Lexi from Ben's account. How do I keep doing this?