Anyone who has lived in Minnesota knows about the challenge of staying warm while looking cool.
Semera Faroog understands. Her company, Made By, based in Peru, uses eco-friendly alpaca fiber to create fashion-forward fair-trade sweaters, scarves, gloves and hats in a variety of earth tones.
The 32-year-old designer is originally from Turkey and split her time between Istanbul and Charleston, S.C., as a child. She lived in St. Paul briefly when she was 17, before moving to New York to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Fashion is in her blood -- her mother was an artisan in Turkey, where she would hand-embroider silks destined for Parisian couture.
"I grew up picking up beads and sequins off the floor," Faroog said.
In New York, she interned with big names such as Cynthia Rowley and Marc Jacobs and ended up working as a sweater designer at Jill Stuart, BCBG and Free People.
In 2008, Faroog returned to St. Paul with a plan to start her own business. Her intuition took her to Arequipa, Peru, which is home to most of the alpaca companies.
"I read a book on Peru with photos from the 1930s, I saw these amazing people on the mountains and I loved the way they dressed," she said. When she arrived, she found that "nothing had changed -- they have the same ponchos that their great-grandparents knit."
