‘Our Grain of Sand’: In Conversation with Ariela and Arie of Casa Xali

“If a Casa Xali bag could talk, what would it say?” I ask Ariela and Arie, co-founders of the sustainable, handmade Mexican fashion brand.

“It would be in the middle of a juicy chisme with its other Casa Xali bag friends sipping cafecito and eating a concha,” the two envisage.

While a vibrant Casa Xali tote would look totally in its element in a room of chit-chatting, espresso-sipping friends, it possesses a deeper, far more intricate origin story.

“Casa Xali was born in the summer of 2020, when we realized that most of the items we owned in our New York City apartments were disposable or held no cultural value for us,” Ariela and Arie explain. The two attended lower school together in Mexico City and reconnected in New York, while Ariela was working as a pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern and Arie was an exhibition designer at the Whitney Museum. They chose to coalesce their respective creative forces to devise their brainchild, Casa Xali.

The entire formulation of their brand occurred through a method that is all too familiar to the current times. “We launched Casa Xali remotely,” Ariela says. “Arie has been living between Brooklyn and Mexico City, while I’ve been in Miami, so we have used a combination of tech [to communicate].”

Ariela and Arie of Casa Xali

Inspired by the prolific craft of their own culture, Casa Xali is a special sort of homage to the handbags and homemade items that Ariela and Arie previously owned and loved. “I used to always get stopped [while] walking in New York City by people who wanted to know where I got my bright pink hammock tote from, and I would always say, ‘Oh, it's from a market in Mexico!’” she explains.

“When creating Casa Xali I wanted to craft a brand that, when the next person asked where my tote was from, I could point them right to our website and say, ‘It’s handmade in Mexico and you can find it here!’” she continues. “I wanted to share my wardrobe with the world.

In doing so, it was critical to the two that each Casa Xali item was fabricated artfully and beautifully, but also sustainably. Their handbags are made from materials like recycled plastic and palm leaves, while each item arrives in a reusable and waterproof Mercado bag, perfect for everyday use— Ariela shares that she particularly likes to use her own multicolored Mercado bags for carrying groceries in style.

“We are in an era where everything has become fast fashion,” the two candidly convey. “We hope Casa Xali can disrupt people’s tendency to buy things for the short term, and we want our customers to acknowledge who, where and how the bag they just purchased was made.”

While crafting a brand— especially one with an eco-friendly angle— poses significant challenges and steps on its own, Ariela and Arie simultaneously worked to create mutual trust and nurturing relationships among a network of expert local artisans, whose dexterity and creativity are truly at the core of Casa Xali. 

“Maria, for example, the first artisan we worked with, is from Chiapas and works with Telar De Cintura, a method where she straps a harness onto her waist and the other side to a wall, and weaves upward to create a long rectangle that she then folds in half to make a tote. It takes her an average of four hours to finish one bag. She learned this at the age of five from her mother who learned this technique from her grandmother. It’s a tradition that gets passed down from generation to generation, and she's been doing it ever since.”

The process of conceptualizing a handbag design and transforming it to reality begins by connecting with an artisan and learning of their specialized technique. Once they curate specific designs that match with the brand’s aesthetic, which Ariela describes as “traditional and elegant with a modern and fresh twist,” the co-founders discuss the weeks-long timeframe of crafting the handbag with the artisan. The scope of techniques that the artisans use includes various forms of weaving and detailed embroidery. Then, the bag is shipped from the artisan’s state in Mexico City to the United States, where Ariela carefully hand fills and ships out each order to patrons.

Arie explains the technicalities of this time-consuming process, stating, “When you are working with human hands and not machines, you need to keep in mind that everything will take much longer to get done. Another challenge for us is being able to precisely match our previous productions. Sometimes artisans have a hard time matching their creations identically.” 

The results of the lengthy, ever-changing design methods prove to be worth it all. These irregularities that the co-founders speak of add to the charisma and uniqueness of each Casa Xali bag. Because each item is crafted by hand, using recycled and environmentally-friendly materials, they vary in color and pattern depending on factors like dye availability and the dryness of the palm leaves. When holding a Casa Xali bag, you’ll likely feel a wave of contented emotion knowing you own an entirely unequaled work of art.

“The Mercado Bags are my favorite,” Arie further explains the distinctive qualities of each Casa Xali packaging bag. “We get them from a small store in the middle of Mexico City’s Centro Historico. The artisans sell them by the dozen and don’t allow you to see or pick the colors you get, so it’s like playing Russian roulette. I get excited to see the new colors and patterns from each surprise batch.”

While the two work towards further collaborating with their talented artisans to develop hybrid designs and potentially expand their collection to household items, there is a constant in Casa Xali’s mission. “We hope to continue inspiring our customers and friends to see the beauty in slow, handmade fashion,” they explain.

Above all, Ariela and Arie have a passion for sharing the beauty of Mexican design and art with the world. The two feel they have a responsibility to promote and highlight the professionalism and ingenuity of Mexican artisans while running a socially conscious brand. In addition to advocating for local artisans, Casa Xali also donates 5% of their sales to a non-profit organization.

“We hope to be a positive bridge between two bordering cultures,” the co-founders express. “In the last few years, the relationship between the United States and Mexico has been damaged by politics, and we hope Casa Xali can be a positive force that unites us as neighbors.”

“In Spanish, there is the saying, aportar un granito de arena, which can be understood as, ‘make a positive impact, no matter how small,’” Ariela says. “Casa Xali is our granito de arena, our grain of sand.”

Photographs courtesy of Casa Xali.

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