"la china"

This is the information I got to go with the Swap from Karen Barbé - as if it wasn't brilliant enough already !

"I wanted to choose all made-in-Chile things, which by the time being are really hard to find. I hope you can get that simple or modest feeling from the Chilean manufacture that I'm very nostalgic from. There's a green printed cotton named percala that was used to make the costume dresses for "la china" (the female partner of "el huaso" -typical characters from the central countryside- used when dancing "la cueca" -national dance-). No need to say that all local textile factories have broke, so finding some real and coarse percala in a shop is a rarity. Then, there's a shoemaker measuring tape. How it is used? No clue but found it nice. The bobbin lace made in Chile. Those zippers bought at an old bazaar that probably hasn't renewed its stock from decades. The butterfly crocheted by a woman who was selling them by the sidewalk. A Chilean flags tape. It's weird how I've denied all those items during my life and always been aiming for the imported or foreigner goods. But now that I'm trying to find my own design style I've realised what an important role they have played. I'm periodically raiding these popular neighbourhoods in search of other pieces I can save from falling into obscurity."